


Vagrant

by HorizonTheTransient



Category: Worm (Web Serial Novel)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-02-13 02:35:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 41
Words: 72,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12973893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorizonTheTransient/pseuds/HorizonTheTransient
Summary: Runaway Capes have a tendency to stick together. They also have a tendency to make bad decisions.





	1. In Which We Meet Our Protagonists, Part 1

"Unbefuckinglievable," the boy muttered to himself as he walked down the street, a duffel bag on one shoulder and not merely a chip but the whole damn potato on the other. "How the  _ hell _ did I end up here? What fucking Greyhound runs up and down the Bos-Wash and then hangs a right at Philadelphia to stop in fucking  _ New Jersey? _ Why the  _ hell _ am I in New Jersey? Why the hell is  _ anyone _ in New Jersey?!"

At 10 AM on a weekday, the streets weren't particularly busy, and with the scarf wrapped around his face, nobody even noticed that he was ranting and raving to himself. And if they did? Well, it was New Jersey. The one virtue everyone there possessed was minding their own business.

"Okay, okay. Calm down. Calm down. You're not that person anymore," he muttered to himself. "You're not angry anymore. You're calm. Kind. Soft. Breathe in. Breathe out. Okay. I have a plan. I prepared for this. Step one. Find a motel. A decent one. Not quite... 'doesn't ask questions.' Those are never very nice."

It didn't take too terribly long to find a motel- he'd hopped off the bus in one of the nicer areas of the city, and from there, he could rent a room, go in, and decompress a little, which involved quite a lot of pacing back and forth, stopping only to check and see if he had an atlas for Brockton Bay(he did not) along with taking a caffeine pill.

After a while, he grudgingly took a shower, exiting after a minute with steam pouring off his body. He cleaned up his face a little, and found himself staring in the mirror.

"...It's me," he whispered, before narrowing his eyes and squaring his shoulders. "...Anyway. Well, the one thing I know about Brockton Bay- other than that it's in New Jersey and incredibly trashy- is that it's a tourist trap. I'm technically a tourist, so let's see what this place has to offer, hm?"

\---

"So," Miss Militia muttered, leafing through the reports. "...Hookwolf broke out of the Birdcage transport again. Hasn't been seen since."

"Damnit," Battery said. "We've put him in one of those twice already. Why can't we get a kill order on him and be done with it?"

"He's just barely tough enough that killing him would almost invariably result in collateral damage," Miss Militia said. "Could I kill him with a HEAT missile? Yes, I could. However, I would also kill anyone standing near or behind the thing I end up hitting instead of him because I am going to miss at least once, and in a city..."

"Yeah, yeah," Battery muttered. "I know, we've had this discussion before... although..."

"Although?"

"Although, I'm wondering if a high-rated Brute or Striker could just physically rip him apart."

"Neither you nor Assault have a power meant for sustained exertion, which is what ripping him apart would involve," Miss Militia said. "And the physically strongest parahuman in the bay is Glory Girl, a minor who does not take orders from us, and might not appreciate us asking her to kill a man by ripping all of his limbs off."

"...Pansy," Battery said.

"Battery," Miss Militia said sternly.

"I'm joking," she said defensively.

"It's not funny," Miss Militia said. "Children should  _ not _ be killers. It's already too much that they have to fight."

"...Oh. Right, um..." Battery trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. "...sorry."

"Where are- ah, there you are." Assault strolled into the room, carrying a stack of more reports. "While you two were getting caught up on the local news, I took the time to check out the national scene."

"Anything interesting?" Miss Militia asked.

"Well, there's the typical noise," Assault said, bringing the stack of reports up to where he could read them. "Some Tinker tried to build a superweapon, and they were stopped by a ragtag team of local heroes and their dog- you know how it is. The  _ interesting _ part is also an incredibly weird one. In Austin, about three days ago, two heroes were found dead in their home."

\---

"Ugh," Gallant muttered, walking into the central area of the Wards rotunda. "Pardon my grousing, but sometimes I hate my job."

"Cardio day again, huh?" Triumph asked. "Your fault for picking the bulkiest costume you could. Besides being sixteen, you're a Blaster; you don't  _ need _ armor."

"For as long my line of work gets me shot at and knifed at, yes I do," Gallant said. "Besides, my armor weighs only twenty pounds altogether. The duralumin is merely a sort of foil skin and a mold- the bulk of the armor is a variation of containment foam that degrades on a timescale of months, rather than hours."

"Oh," Triumph said. "...I didn't know that."

"Rory, it has been eight months."

"Yeah, well, the structural composition of your armor wasn't exactly a hot topic," Triumph said. "...Not where you could hear it, anyway."

"Oh? Were there any jokes about the padding being made of hundred dollar bills?" Gallant asked.

"No, but that's because I didn't think of that, and I'm definitely going to steal that."

"Perhaps with my weapon of choice being a designer sock stuffed with commemorative coins minted in 22 karat gold?"

"Wouldn't that weigh, like, twenty pounds or so?"

"It depends on how much gold you put in," Gallant said. "As a bludgeon against unarmored targets, it  _ would _ be rather effective, but-"

"Dude. You were joking. You're killing your own joke."

"I am but a mere accessory to the murder.  _ You _ were the one who slit my joke's throat."

"God, this is fucking weird," Triumph said. "I'm only now realizing that you have a sense of humor."

" _ Eight months _ , Rory."

"Well it's not like we've talked much! You always have that weird-ass formal tone going on and it's really off-putting and also up until three months ago I thought you were a pedophile-"

"You  _ what?! _ "

"Look, I thought there was something going on with you and Vista!"

"And you were willing to  _ let that slide _ for five months?!"

"Well it wasn't my business!"

"Rory, if you  _ dare _ absolve yourself on the grounds that it was not your business ever again, I will  _ personally _ throw you into the Bay. We are  _ heroes _ , Rory. Act like it."

\---

He looked the part of the tourist as he moseyed along the Boardwalk. The was perfect for his purposes; big enough that it wouldn't be too hard for him to get his hands on esoteric items, but small enough and sufficiently out of the way that nobody would think to look for him here. He was dreading the rain, but having grown up in another coastal city, it wasn't anything he wasn't used to.

Today, though, it wasn't raining. He still had a heavy coat, thin knit gloves, and a pair of sunglasses on, and an old green cemedani(he didn't recall where it came from, only what it was called and that he'd always had it) tied around his head to cover his hair, but considering that it was early January in New England, he was hoping any observers would either think he was a Southerner, or preferably mind their own business.

He kept his head on a swivel as he walked along the Boardwalk, looking the part of the tourist who couldn't stand the cold, and tried his best at constructing a mental map. Then, seemingly on autopilot, he hung a left and stepped into an alleyway between shops. Before he realized just what he was doing, he took stock of the situation: a man old enough to be his father(a thought that seared at the back of his eyes) with probable military history, holding a young teenage girl at gunpoint. Both white. The girl looked homeless. The man looked like a security guard.

"Move al-" the man got out before the boy made his move. The boy clenched his fist, and suddenly the air stilled. The man's eyes widened, and he moved to point the gun at the boy instead.

Too slow.

The boy stretched his arm out, unclenching his fist, and a gout of fire shot out and burned the back of the man's hand, forcing the tendons to contract and making him drop the gun. The boy took a step forward, slugging the man in the throat with his other fist.

The man choked and stumbled back, and the boy continued, grabbing the man by the shoulder and spinning him ninety degrees before slamming him face-first into the wall opposite the girl. He kicked the man's gun up into the air and caught it with his hand, before shooting the man in the knees with it. Neither gunshot made a sound, and when the boy cracked the butt of the pistol against the man's head, neither did that. He dropped the gun, and cleared his throat, releasing his grasp on the air.

"...You okay?" he asked, turning around to face the girl.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, clearly still rattling. Perhaps he'd overdone it. She squared her shoulders a bit and grinned at him. "Thanks for the rescue."

"Don't sweat it," he said. "...So, uh, if you wouldn't mind never sharing this moment with another soul, that'd be peachy keen."

"You're not trying to be a hero," she said. "You just have leftover instincts  _ from _ being a hero."

"Goddamnit," he muttered, his shoulders dropping. "Fucking hate Thinkers."

"Look, I think the two of us should stick together," she said. "You're clearly new here, and I might or might not have someone after me. We can help each other."

"I don't want or need your help," he said gruffly.

"Listen to yourself talk. Of  _ course _ you need my help."

"Convince me," he said flatly.

"I know his PIN."

"...I'm convinced."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Duralumin is a trade name like Frisbee or Kleenex. It is an aluminum alloy with a small amount of copper and trace amounts of manganese and magnesium in it, and it hardens by being left at room temperature for a day or three. Ordinarily, you would not want to make armor out of duralumin, or aluminum, or titanium(no, seriously, titanium is not an armor-grade metal), or really anything that isn't steel, but Gallant's armor is only skinned with duralumin, which looks pretty bitchin'. Also, it's intended to be worn by a sixteen year old boy, and with a few exceptions that Gallant absolutely is not one of, sixteen year old boys cannot walk around all day in fifty five pounds of steel armor and fifteen pounds of kevlar bodysuit. Fifteen pounds of kevlar bodysuit and five pounds of foil-wrapped containment foam, however, is a much more reasonable load, by a factor of fifty entire pounds.


	2. In Which We Meet Our Protagonists, Part 2

"So, a hero, huh? Independent or ex-Protectorate?" she asked, flopping onto the bed. He'd taken her back to his motel room, which he was clearly new to.

"Drop it," he said.

"I'm a... what did you call it, a Thinker? I like that term. I'll figure it out one way or another. Might as well just tell me."

He sighed as he locked the door, and sat down in the chair. The room was very clearly meant for two people who were quite close, judging by the two chairs by the table and the one bed. He ran a hand through his chalky white hair, wishing he'd brought more than one scarf. He'd given her the cemedani, to hide her hair, and the coat to hide her frankly quite filthy clothes, so that whoever was after her wouldn't recognize her.

"I'm not really in the mood to do you any favors." He carefully removed the jacket she'd given him, and tossed it at her. He'd taken it to conceal his gun and his knife, which he was fairly certain he wasn't legally allowed to carry openly in New Jersey. "For one, you lied about knowing his PIN, which made stealing his wallet only worth twenty dollars."

"I knew his  _ friend's _ PIN," she said. "Well, coworker. Co-conspirator? Whatever, point is, heat of the moment. Little slip-up."

"No, you lied to me," he said. "So, unless you feel like relying on my brand new better nature, you better give me some damn good reasons not to throw you back to the wolves." He frowned. "Also, give me my fucking coat back. And the scarf."

"The hell's a virgin like you doing with a  _ fucking _ coat?" she asked, pulling the cemedani off and tossing it at him. He reached out, blowing air into it from behind to make it sail gracefully into his hand. "Oooh, nice. So, what power-"

"Please shut up," he said, stilling the air around her mouth and silencing her. "We're doing this my way. I ask the questions, you tell the truth. If you lie to me  _ again _ , I'm going to shoot you. First question. Describe your power to me." He released the air as he began tying the cemedani around his head again, covering his hair.

"That's not a question," she said.

"Answer it anyway, smartass."

"Okay, well, I have an... intuition. I can look at someone and  _ know _ things about them. I was able to figure out a man's PIN just from a half minute of looking at him and seeing him use his left hand to work his phone, and that he had a gun after only a few seconds more," she said. "That's if I push myself, though, and if I do that too much, I get migraines and have to lay in bed for a while."

"Mm," he muttered. "Well, that sounds useful. Give me an estimate on when you'll be ready again."

"Are you going to actually ask me any questions?" she asked.

He pulled his gun from its holster, and set it on the table.

"A week. Probably."

"Mn," he muttered. "...You got a name?"

"Lisa," she said. "Lisa Wilbourne. You?"

He sighed, leaning back in the chair, internally scrambling to come up with a name.

"...Kenji Takeuchi," he said finally.

\---

"Guess who got their brand new superhero name," Dennis said, swanning into the Wards rotunda. With his power literally coloring his view of people, Dean found himself frequently forgetting that Dennis was black, and wondered just what the hell was wrong with him that he somehow kept forgetting this.

"You are an entire dumbass," Triumph said flatly.

"Hey now," Dennis began.

"You named yourself a  _ dick joke _ ," Triumph said. "In  _ public _ . With  _ no _ consultation with the PR teams."

"It's  _ my _ name!" Dennis said defensively.

"You work for the government now," Triumph said flatly. "You don't get to name yourself something like that."

"But..."

"Oh, also, the Director says your pay's getting docked," Triumph said. "Say goodbye to your next paycheck."

"What? Bullshit! She can't do that!"

"She can, and she did," Triumph said.

"But I need the money!" Dennis said.

"For what?"

"To pay for things, like some kinda  _ poor _ person," Dennis said flatly. "Some of us have to work for a living, you know."

"I can loan you the money," Dean said, finally looking up from the homework he was doing.

"Yeah, no," Dennis said. "I know how that game goes with rich people, and I don't plan on paying you seventy percent interest for the rest of my life."

"No interest," Dean said, raising his hands. "I would  _ prefer _ that you pay me back at some point, but you don't necessarily need to."

"...What's the catch?"

"You wound me," Dean said, clutching his chest. "No catch, between teammates. My job is to look out for you, and yours is to look out for me."

"...And?"

"...and, admittedly, what you did was very, very funny," Dean said. "A bad idea, but very funny."

"Alright, well, I'll pass along to Robocop that you were properly yelled at, and then my work is done," Triumph said, getting up off the couch. "Later, dorks."

\---

"Alright, I got you those files you asked for," Assault said, setting a thick manila folder down on the table. "Got a new angle on this- apparently those heroes- Powder and Blizzard, they're called- they had a son, named Red Wind."

"And where's he?" Battery asked, opening the folder.

"That's the thing," Assault said. "Nobody knows where."

"...Oh  _ no _ , that poor kid."

"That 'poor kid' has personally broken two of my ribs."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah, he's a vicious son of a bitch, no offense to the dead," Assault said. "Did you know multiple attempts have been made on Powder and Blizzard's lives before?"

"No. Why?"

"Well, it's kinda common knowledge that they're Eidolon's friends," Assault said. "They were already in Houston when he moved in. Anyway, plenty of villains hate Eidolon and want to get at him,  _ so _ they try killing his friends. Or kidnapping their son. Guess how that ends."

"...some villains ended up in the hospital?"

"Try the morgue," Assault said. "He's killed on multiple occasions. Never got in trouble for it, thankfully- down in Texas, they have laxer laws about when killing a man is acceptable. If a kid gets kidnapped and shoots his kidnappers... well, the courts don't think the kid did anything wrong."

"Okay, so he can take care of himself. Is that what you're getting at?"

"Pretty much," Assault said. "That, and... if you're going to look for him, start looking for corpses. No way he didn't make any."

Battery frowned as she picked up the folder and started reading.

"...Let's see, there's some stuff with the Fallen," Battery said. "There was also an incident with some mercenaries called The Rustlers, and according to this, Red Wind killed them with a Colt Python."

"That some kinda gun?"

".357 revolver," Battery said. "Used to be the favorite of police officers, but they switched over to automatics once they realized that a 9mm does pretty much the same thing as a 38 Special, and they also stopped letting police officers use their own guns. My dad, he was a police chief. Gave me his old Python. I still have it, somewhere. Anyway. Point is, Red Wind kills people with guns, according to this."

"Okay, but how often does someone get killed with a Colt Python?" Assault asked.

"In the twelve hours since I got up, there's probably been at least as many shootings in the United States," Battery said flatly. "And the Colt Python was a  _ very _ popular gun. Oh, and he also might've lost it, and grabbed a different one. Or, since we're spitballing, he might not've killed  _ anyone _ yet. So no, I really  _ don't _ think we can track him through corpses."

"No, no, he's a fighter. A mean son of a bitch, according to my own two eyes and two of my ribs. No way he didn't kill someone yet."

"If he was taken, sure," Battery said. "But he might not've been taken. He might've just left."

\---

"Vicky, this is ridiculous," Amy yelled.

"Presentation is  _ key _ , Ames," Vicky yelled back. "Did I stick it or no?"

"Yes, you stuck it. Can we go home now?"

"I need to practice this, Amy," Vicky said, floating over to Amy so they wouldn't have to yell across the deck of an abandoned cargo ship.

"You really don't, is the thing," Amy said. "It's ridiculous. Do you think Alexandria practices dramatic landings?"

"She doesn't need to, that's not her style," Vicky said. "Her style is more dramatically floating down so her feet are about eye level, and looking stern, right before kicking someone in the face."

"And why don't  _ you _ do that?"

"I can't just  _ rip off  _ Alexandria! Everyone's going to notice!" She paused, frowning. "Also, you remember what happened  _ last _ time I kicked someone in the face."

"Okay, that's... that's a fair point," Amy said, sighing. "I mean. Congratulations on learning from your mistakes, at least?"

"Learning is, of course, what I am here to do," Vicky said primly, throwing in a curtsy near the end.

"Yeah, well, you can learn to use a camera and a tripod. Come on, let's go home. I have a project due tomorrow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of what makes this an AU is because I know from experience that someone is going to flip their goddamned shit about Clockblocker being black otherwise. I am, in fact, accusing a portion of my audience of being racist. I'm not gonna say "I'm not saying y'all are racist but y'all did do this racist thing..." no, y'all are racist. Now, if you're not in the group that flipped out about Black Clockblocker, then obviously I'm not talking about you.  
> As for those of you who didn't read Average Joe and are genuinely curious why I did this, the answer is simple: there are like five notable black people in Worm canon(Word of God is not canon): Brian and Aisha Laborn, Skidmark, Sophia Hess, and Doctor Mother. Here's the thing about the people I just listed off: every single one of them is a violent criminal. Sophia has an animalistic mindset and fights with antiquated weapons. Aisha is a crack baby and Taylor introduces us to her by saying she dresses like a whore. Brian's hobby is learning new ways to kick people's asses. Skidmark is... well, if I have to explain to you why Skidmark is a racist caricature of black people, then you either know nothing about American culture, which places you in good company with Wildbow himself, or you're being deliberately obtuse and should probably go fuck yourself. Now, I'm not saying that you're not allowed to have those sorts of characters in your stories and have them be black, but if those are the only black people in your stories... that's something of a problem, isn't it? So, here's how it is now: Aegis and Clockblocker both are black. Aegis is still Puerto Rican- remember, some Puerto Ricans are black- and Clockblocker is now an out-of-practice Muslim. And there's going to be no "they're secretly evil!" twist. They're black dudes who are unambiguously heroes.


	3. Taking Stock

"So, what do you have to work with?" Kenji asked.

"Aside from my power? Well, I know a few sleight of hand tricks, and how to pick pockets," Lisa said. "I'm pretty good at that. Stole the watch right off a man's wrist once."

"Good to know, but not what I meant," Kenji said. "What material assets do you have? You're a pickpocket, so you should have  _ some _ cash."

"Try twenty thousand dollars," Lisa said with a satisfied smirk. "Mostly in a very,  _ very _ well-hidden cache only I know about."

"Oh damn," he muttered. "The fuck are you still doing picking pockets, then?"

"Well how else am I going to make money?" she asked. "It's not like I have that many options to begin with. How much cash do you have, by the by?"

"Another twenty grand," he said, shrugging. "I'd say we have about three months comfortable enough living before we really need to make a move and expand our income somehow."

"Elaborate a little," Lisa said. "I'm not using my power on you. I want to put off this migraine for as long as possible."

"Well, we can't live off of forty thousand dollars for the rest of our lives," Kenji said. "So, we need to find a source of income that isn't pickpocketing, which could be any number of things. I'm pegging our time limit at three months because I'm guessing we're going to have to spend a lot of money before we can start making it back."

"Three months... Hrm." Lisa frowned as she tapped her chin, humming thoughtfully as she mulled it over. "Okay, well, I bet that, between the two of us, we can move up the ladders of villainy. That makes money, right? Has to. Otherwise, why would they do it?"

"There's a million and one reasons to commit a crime, but yes, most of them boil down to 'I needed the money,'" Kenji said. "That is, incidentally, why heroes have a general policy of not killing. Most villains are merely thieves, smugglers, and drug dealers."

"So we're probably not gonna get killed doing this."

"No, but that's because we're going to explore other options first," Kenji said. "I'm kind of sick of fighting and excitement in general. Part of the reason I'm here, and not... well. We're getting off-track."

"So what do you suggest we try first?"

"Taking advantage of the idle rich who have more money than sense is always a solid option for the clever, ambitious orphan with little resources of their own. Now I don't know how well you can grift, but I can play the role of the tutor fairly well, and I bet you can think of a way to add to this."

"Hrm... I have a few ideas, yeah. What skills can you tutor?"

"Academic subjects, woodcarving, Japanese painting, the Japanese language, and guitar."

"Hrm... Okay, yeah, I- ow, ow, ow."

Lisa laid back on the bed, screwing her eyes shut and covering them with her palms.

"Ooooooh fuck, it's catching up to me. Fucking... fuck. Fuck."

"Boy am I glad I don't get Thinker headaches," Kenji said, getting up and walking over to his bag. "Just regular caffeine headaches."

"Mrrrrrnnn..."

"Okay, I don't have any painkillers stronger than aspirin and caffeine pills, but for a headache, that's about what you need."

"Migraine. Not headache."

"Same treatment," Kenji muttered, pulling out a trio of pill bottles and beginning to measure out some capsules. "How much do you weigh?"

"Hundred twenty."

"Alright... okay, here we are." He pressed a small handful of pills into Lisa's hand. "Take those." He grabbed a metal canteen out of his pack while she put them in her mouth, and helped her upright so she wouldn't spill water all over herself while she drank.

She laid back down once the pills were down, and groaned some more.

"Alright, well, get some rest," Kenji said. "I'll wake you up if there's shooting."

"Guns'll... do that..." she said wearily, burying her head under a pillow before slipping herself under the covers.

Kenji knelt back down and started rummaging in his bag again. He had to find something to fill his time, now.

\---

"So, how was your first patrol with Aegis?" Gallant asked as Vista walked into the rotunda. It was starting to fill up, with the only person missing being Challenger, who was probably off doing some sort of training or paperwork. She only had another three months before her 18th birthday, and then Triumph would take over.

"Offered to carry me, since I can't fly," Vista said, the anger clear even to people who couldn't see auras like Gallant could.

"I suppose I have a copycat," Gallant said. "Did you at least decline politely?"

"I used my power to step onto the roof of a building, and asked if he was coming," Vista said.

"...Did you do so politely?"

"I didn't swear at him."

"Vista."

"He's a big boy, he can handle being shown up by a little girl," Vista complained. "What do you care, anyway? I thought you were on my side here."

"There is only one side here, Vista. If you so desire, I can talk to Aegis and catch him up to speed. But do try to be polite. It makes everything easier."

\---

_ Timeline A _

They'd managed to tail the brats fairly well. The boss was fairly certain the Thinker and her muscle would listen to a more diplomatic approach, and so he sent Alex to finish the job she started.

\---

_ Timeline B _

They'd managed to tail the brats fairly well. The boss was fairly certain the Thinker and her muscle would be more tractable with a few shotguns in their faces, and so he sent three fresh mercenaries in plainclothes and trenchcoats.

\---

Alex knocked on the door and waited. She knocked again, and kept waiting. Right before she slipped out her Masterkey and blew the lock open, the door opened, and she found herself looking down the wrong end of a revolver held by the boy who'd shot John and busted his skull.

"Make your offer and make it fast before I carve out your skull and use it for a soup bowl," the boy said, the anger unconveyed by his face and his tone conveying itself through the gun in her face and the words in his mouth. "And drop the gun. I'm keeping it."

Alex decided that the Masterkey was infinitely more replacable than her face and everything behind it, and didn't feel like gambling said face and everything behind it on the possibility she could shoot him before he could shoot her. Besides, she was loaded for doors, and he was likely loaded for humans.

\---

Tim stood in front of the door, Jack and Gary standing at either side. He produced a large black cylinder, placing one end at the peephole, and sticking his eye to the other end. He got a nice, clear view of the inside of the room, and grinned a little.

He signed with his free hand- girl asleep, boy out of sight. He pulled away to glance at Jack and Gary, checking to make sure they were ready.

Jack and Gary both nodded at him, and Tim glanced back through the peephole again.

\---

"Got a phone call for you," she said, gesturing at her pocket.

"Take the phone out, then," the boy said. "You obviously know I'll shoot you before it looks like you're trying anything."

She nodded wordlessly, and reached into her pocket, pulling out a phone that was already starting to ring. She answered it wordlessly, and handed it over to the boy.

\---

Jack and Gary knew something was wrong when Tim fell over onto the ground, and knew precisely what was wrong when they spotted the new bullet hole in the door and in Tim's forehead. They were expected.

But the time in which they were able to puzzle this out happened to be the amount of time it took for an AR-7 to cycle and fire another shot, twice.

The door opened, and Kenji Takeuchi began to drag the bodies inside.

\---

_ "My name is Coil," _ the man on the other end of the phone said.  _ "I must confess, I don't have much information on you." _

"The only information you really  _ need _ is that I've killed before and I'll do it again," Kenji said. He'd pulled Alex in, and was holding her at gunpoint while he spoke. "So what, precisely, are you calling for?"

_ "Both you and the girl with you, Miss Wilbourne, have talents that I would like to make use of. I'm willing to offer quite a lot of money, some security, and documentation to make your lives easier." _

\---

"You know," Kenji muttered as he covered the bullet holes with a piece of colored duct tape. "I'm really glad I resisted the impulse to shoot that dumbass through the peephole. That would've been  _ way _ harder to cover up."

He stepped back inside and closed the door, before looking down at the bodies. He sighed, and snapped his fingers, producing a little flame at the tip.

"You know, I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to smoke in here,  _ but _ ..."

\---

_ "Think about it. No need to scramble for money, food, shelter... you can have a comfortable, easy existence. Would you like to make a deal?" _

"Mm. Well, first and foremost, Coil, you're misusing some terminology," Kenji said, taking a seat and keeping the gun trained on Alex, even as she moved to take the seat across from him. "See,  _ deals _ are between equals. The word you're looking for is  _ terms _ . So here's the terms I'm offering: leave this city, take your whole operation and move it- I don't care where, move it to fucking Nashville or Las Vegas or  _ wherever _ . In exchange, I will never tell anyone about you, or your operation. How's that sound?"

_ "You're not exactly in a position to be making demands." _

"Listen here you little cockroach, because I will not repeat myself," Kenji growled. "I can tell you're a Thinker, because of the very  _ particular _ flavor of stupid you are. Unless you happen to have some very potent Brutes, Blasters, or Shakers on retainer- and you  _ don't _ , or else you would've sent  _ them _ instead of single woman with a sawn-off shotgun- you cannot pressure or force me. You had your chance to tempt me, to negotiate, but you blew it the moment you looked like you were willing to use force if I said no. Now, if I see hide or hair of you or any of yours ever again, I'm going to figure it's self defense and just start shooting." He snapped the phone shut, which was impressive considering that it was a smartphone not intended to fold even a little bit, and handed it to Alex. "You've got five seconds.  _ Go _ ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's hard to fill out the Wards and Protectorate roster when we're at a time other than "between April 14th and July 15th 2011" because we're led to believe that Kid Win and Browbeat are fairly recent recruits- Kid Win isn't super recent, but he's still green enough that he's testing the boundaries still. Also, Challenger isn't some dude I made up. She's a cape that was apparently part of Brockton Bay's Protectorate(I bumped her down to Wards and said she was the oldest) according to the Lung interlude I found while looking for the Dauntless interlude that incidentally is actually not canon but is instead from Cenotaph. I have no clue what Challenger does, or what she looks like, and Challenger being a girl is just me shrugging and saying "Well why not?"  
> Anyway, since there's literally no canon on the subject, and Word of God doesn't count: Challenger is a Blaster/Mover/Trump who gets stronger and faster according to the threat she faces. Of course, it's not a one-to-one ratio, which is why she can't beat up Endbringers, or even Lung(although that's more a matter of collateral damage and 'does he really need to die?').


	4. Market Day

"Fucking narcissist," Dennis muttered.

"What?" Dean asked, looking up from the skillfully handcrafted Gallant statuette he'd bought. "I see nothing wrong with supporting local artists."

"And that's why you're only looking at the Gallant one, and the others are in the bag," Dennis said.

Dean, upon finding a market stall that was selling statuettes of the local heroes, had promptly bought one of each.

"Yes, well, I want to see how well they captured the design of my armor," Dean said.

"Mhm, mhm,  _ sure _ you do," Dennis said. "So, explain to me again why we're here?"

"Every team requires a sort of cohesion," Dean said. "It works best when everyone is at the very least familiar with one another. And the simplest way to achieve that is through simply spending time together."

"Okay, I'm with you so far," Dennis said. "But I don't see what that has to do with you essentially taking me shopping at the marketplace."

"This is us spending time together," Dean said.

"...Just to make sure- you  _ are _ , in fact, a dude, right?" Dennis asked. "You're not just, like, a girl with a deep voice and a flat chest and an adam's apple? Cause that happens. I'm not judging. I just want to know."

"I am a man, yes," Dean said. "Would you rather do something else next time? I'm open to suggestions."

"I mean, we could just leave and do something more interesting  _ now _ ," Dennis said.

"Ah. Well... unfortunately, someone is supposed to meet us here," Dean said. "I would feel bad if I stood them up like that."

Dennis groaned.

\---

"Alright, well, if we- Vicky? Vicky!" Amy scowled as she stomped across the street after her sister.

"So, you do lessons?" Vicky asked.

"Sure do, ma'am," the guitarist said, still playing. He was smiling a little bit awkwardly, like it didn't come natural to him. "My associate here does singing and piano lessons."

"Here, take one of these," the associate said, handing Vicky a flier.

"Oh, nice," Vicky said.

"Vicky, come on, don't you think this is getting a little ridiculous?" Amy asked.

"Do you know how many Alexandria Packages there are just in Brockton Bay alone?" Vicky asked.

" _ True _ Alexandria Packages? Two."

"Two Alexandria Packages, in a city with maybe fifty or so capes," Vicky said. "That works out to four percent, right?"

"What's your point?"

"My point is that I have to do  _ something _ to differentiate myself and stand out," Vicky said.

"Ma'am, are you implying that you intend to fight crime while playing the guitar?" the guitarist asked.

"Well when you put it like that, it sounds stupid," Vicky said.

"That's because it  _ is _ stupid, Vicky," Amy said.

"Well, I do recall there being a flying bri- apologies,  _ Alexandria Package _ , operating in Baton Rouge, who played a trumpet to go with his accessory power," the guitarist said. "Something to do with sound waves or acoustics, or... something."

"But nobody who used a guitar, right?" Vicky asked.

"Not as far as I recall," the guitarist said. "It... could potentially actually work out rather well, depending on how good of a metalworker you know." He'd stopped playing, and was now tapping his chin in contemplation. "See, if you can manage it, integrating an electric guitar into an impractically large axe designed to  _ not _ kill people is one way you could pull it off."

"Ooooh, that's actually a really good idea," Vicky muttered. "I mean, it'd be hard to carry around just casually, but... well, I mean, you've probably guessed that I don't really  _ have _ a secret identity."

"Aw, and here I was hoping that you'd trust a complete stranger with such sensitive information for literally no reason," the guitarist said, pouting.

"Quit flirting with the customers, Kenji," the girl with the fliers said. "Besides, that's Glory Girl."

"Ah, no wonder you feel the need to stand out," the guitarist apparently named Kenji said. "I suppose they're running out of good names for parahumans already."

"Hey!" Vicky all but yelled, planting her hands on her hips and crumpling the flier in the process.

"Alright, I may have been a little harsh," Kenji said. "I distinctly recall a parahuman from San Antonio named Young Buck. Glory Girl is, at the least, a better name than  _ that. _ "

"Why in god's name do they let teenagers keep picking their own names?" Flier Girl asked.

"There's a new Ward in town, named Clockblocker," Amy added in.

"Okay, that's it, we're done," Kenji said. "No more parahumans. No more names. We've peaked, there's nowhere to go but down."

"Isn't 'clockblocked' what people in long distance relationships say when timezones get in the way?" Vicky asked.

"Oh that's clever," Kenji muttered.

"Not that I mind keeping him waiting, but weren't we supposed to be meeting your boyfriend somewhere?" Amy asked.

"Oh shit, right, fuck," Vicky said. "Uh... pardon my French."

"You call that French?" Kenji asked, seemingly offended. "A  _ true _ Frenchman would've said 'shit in the Holy Grail.' Well, a Quebecois would've."

"Pft, oh my god. Right, well, see ya later, probably."

\---

"So I learned something at the library," Kenji said.

"Oh?" Lisa asked, looking up from the book she'd picked up.

"Assuming that the name Wilbourne is either your real one-"

"It obviously isn't."

"-or one you stole from someone who lived near you-"

"Mhm."

"-then there's no way in hell you are  _ not _ from the American South."

"...oh hell."

"And given a bunch of minor statistical details I won't bore you with... I'm gonna say that it's most likely that you are from Texas."

" _ Shit _ ."

"So yeah, do you get it? Do you get why I don't want you digging into my history? Have I made you understand?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it..." Lisa groused. "...but, at the same time, you have to tell me what state  _ you're _ from."

"I don't, actually. I can just continue painting in silence."

"But are you  _ going _ to?"

Silence reigned for a few seconds.

"What are you painting, anyway?" Lisa asked.

"You," Kenji said. "You're the most visually interesting thing in this room, and you're also  _ right there _ ."

"Aw, I'm flattered," Lisa said flatly.

"I'm your bodyguard, not your boyfriend," Kenji said. "If you want flattery, I'm afraid you're going to have to look elsewhere."

"You sure you're not my boyfriend? Cause you follow me pretty much everywhere."

"Again, bodyguard," Kenji said. "Rather difficult to guard the body from three blocks over. I'm damn good at what I do, but I'm not  _ that _ much of a miracle worker. Besides, it's for the best I'm not, because otherwise sharing the bed might be an option." They had, of course, moved to a different motel under cover of night after the mercenary's visit, but had wound up stuck with yet another one-bed room. "And  _ that _ would be a pretty bad security risk, I'd say."

"Ah, but consider: we could stop sleeping in shifts and get more than, like, two consecutive hours of sleep at a time," Lisa said.

"Yeah but you probably have cold feet, or cold hands," Kenji said.

"Kenji your power makes you completely unable to sense temperature."

"And? Your feet are still probably cold."

\---

"That... seems impractical," Dean said.

"Oh  _ come on _ ," Vicky said. "You haven't even given it a try."

"Victoria, you swinging  _ anything _ axe-shaped at a person is a  _ terrible _ idea, from a Public Relations standpoint, as well as a Concern For The Wellbeing Of Others standpoint," Dean said. "Someone could end up seriously hurt."

"Well, that's kinda the point of an axe," Dennis said dryly.

"Heroes should not attack people with axes at all," Dean said.

"Coward," Vicky muttered.

"Also, wear and tear would be... significant," Dean continued. "There is a  _ reason _ it only takes three or four swings to break a guitar, and thousands to break an axe, despite the same materials being used for the handle. And then there is the question of how you'd actually  _ play _ such a thing..."

"And the fact that your costume looks like the Sexy Halloween Statue of Liberty," Amy added. "The idea of Lady Liberty wielding a battleaxe that is also an electric guitar is... ridiculous, in a kind of insipid way."

"...I don't know what insipid means, so... Hey, Dean, I think I just figured out what I'd rather do for our, uh, teambuilding exercises," Dennis said, taking the flier and smoothing it out.

"Guitar lessons?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. I mean, why not?"

"Do iiiit," Vicky half-hissed.

"Well, I suppose that does settle the matter..." Dean said. "Alright, well, I will set up a lesson at my house... you know how to get there?"

"Yeah, yeah," Dennis said. "I'm gonna see if I can dig up my grandpa's old guitar..."

"No need," Dean said. "My father collects guitars. I doubt he would object to them being put to use."

"I mean, that's typically not true of collectors, but sure," Amy said.

"Amy," Vicky pleaded, with the same tone she'd use to say 'Please' or 'Behave.'

"She raises a fair point," Dean conceded. "Still, I doubt it would be particularly difficult for me to get my hands on a pair of guitars. So, moving on..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was originally a little tangent about why, precisely, Victoria would not under any circumstances go for an "angelic" aesthetic. The short version is "I don't want people to wonder if I'm secretly a white supremacist(any more than they probably already do)."


	5. Artistry, Part 1

"You know, if this kid was a year or two older, I'd start wondering if I should be jealous," Assault said.

"Wh- ew, he's fifteen!" Battery said.

"Well, like I said, if he was a year or two older," Assault said. "Cause  _ you're _ eighteen. Besides, we've got a  _ four _ year age gap."

"The gap between fifteen and eighteen is a lot more meaningful than between eighteen and twenty two," Battery muttered, continuing to read over the files. "Anyway, a kid is missing and his parents are dead. Of  _ course _ I'm worried about that."

"So's Armsmaster, not that he'll admit it," Assault said. "Says, uh... fuck, what did he say... Oh, that he's making sure Red Wind won't become our problem. Not sure what  _ that _ means, since we're a backwater port in New Jersey and Red Wind speaks Spanish."

"Where did you read that?" Battery asked.

"Didn't. Heard it from his brother. Half-brother. That mercenary, Longshot?" Assault asked. "Plus, well... he lives in Texas. It's not exactly hard to learn Spanish when you live there."

"Okay, I'll trust you on that... but what does knowing Spanish have to do with anything?"

Assault sighed, and grabbed a map of the United States before indicating where Texas was, and then where Mexico was in relation to it.

"Oh. That's... I feel stupid, now."

"It's okay, I sometimes forget Mexico exists, too."

"So, if Red Wind wanted to disappear... you're saying he would've gone to Mexico?" Battery asked.

"Yeah, probably," Assault said. "He's a pretty powerful cape, and he's  _ been _ one since he was ten. He'd be slumming it if he  _ didn't _ take control of a gang. Or, maybe, a team of heroes. Course, this is all contingent on him leaving instead of being taken, which is entirely possible. He's nowhere near invincible, and pretty much any Alexandria Package can completely trash him."

"You said he was powerful."

"Glass cannon. He can kill anything that bleeds or burns, but there's plenty of capes that  _ don't _ . Just thinking of locals... yeah, I can think of maybe five or six capes that could pick him up and carry him somewhere he doesn't wanna go."

"Who?"

"Well, there's New Wave's flyers, there's Rune, and depending on how big of a gun Red Wind has... Gallant."

" _ Gallant? _ Really? I would've put Fenja and Menja on that list, if we're talking capes that could pick up and carry an incalcitrant Blaster."

"Shaker, not Blaster," Assault said. "And no, Fenja and Menja aren't  _ that _ tough. A bullet through the eye could seriously hurt them, and there's the fact that their power's mechanism might have weird effect on Shakers that would put their whole bodies well within Red Wind's range. No, if I was gonna put another Empire cape on there... Maybe Krieg or Kaiser."

"If you're counting Gallant, what about Purity?"

"Gallant has the sense to wear a bulletproof suit of armor. Purity doesn't. Anyway, this is all kinda useless speculation, because unless the kids these days are into some  _ really _ kinky shit, I'm pretty sure Gallant and Glory didn't take a road trip down to Houston to murder Red Wind's parents and kidnap him for a threesome."

The two of them paused, Assault wondering why the hell he just said that, and Battery wondering if she could find such a fanfiction or if she'd have to write it herself.

"...Anyway, I'm gonna go be somewhere else," Assault said. "Somewhere with a priest."

\---

"So, where are you two from?" Dean asked.

"Galveston," Kenji replied as the four of them walked into a fairly empty room, the only furniture present being some stools and beanbags. "Well, back when it existed." Everyone in the room winced a little; Galveston had only sunk about a year ago. "She's the one who's adopted, by the way."

"No, I'm pretty sure that's you," Lisa said.

"Look, I'm older, therefore I adopted you. Anyway, thank you for allowing me to bring her along. Not safe leaving her alone."

"Not a problem," Dean said. "There have been much stranger stipulations from contractors."

"Holy shit that is a beautiful guitar," Dennis said as Kenji unzipped his guitar case. Kenji's guitar, a fairly standard mass-produced acoustic guitar, had been painted with a grayscale scene of a giant chasing the sun, which was represented by the sound hole.

"Ah, thank you," Kenji said. "I take pride in my painting. It's... soothing. And, of course, it produces things like this." He ran a hand along the side, and sighed. "So, how did you two hear about us?"

"My girlfriend picked up a flier from you two," Dean said. "She was quite insistent that I learn to play the guitar."

"They're always like that until you get calluses on your fingers," Kenji said with a chuckle.

"Eh, I dunno," Lisa said. "Some girls might be into that."

"Okay, too much information," Dennis said.

"Alright, but the calluses are something of an important thing," Kenji said. "That's the thing about playing the guitar- you are pressing down very hard on some very thin metal, and it will hurt your fingers until you build up calluses. So, obviously, I want you two to practice every day, even if it's just for five minutes or so. Unless, for whatever reason, you two are already doing things that would give you calluses on the fingertips of your left hands?"

Lisa sat down on a beanbag, and pulled a gameboy she'd stolen from Kenji out of her hoodie's pocket.

Dean and Dennis both shook their heads as Dean grabbed a pair of acoustic guitars from the corner. He'd gotten them from a proper store rather than a pawn shop, but they were identical to Kenji's guitar, save for the paint job.

"Alright, well, unfortunately for you two, starting out with guitar isn't very fun. What I'm gonna teach you two today is just a few basic chords, and a practice exercise to build those calluses and train your hand. So, first-  okay, first I need to show you how to hold a pick, actually. And here I thought I'd run out of things to say."

\---

"Damnit!"

"What is it this time?" Amy asked, largely unperturbed as she turned the page of a vampire novel so trashy it might as well have been printed on toilet paper.

"Okay,  _ so, _ your Statue of Liberty thing gave me an idea, and I was halfway through memorizing the Constitution before I remembered that Miss Militia already has the Americana theme,  _ and _ she's doing it  _ way _ more tastefully than I ever could."

"Vicky. Please. You're being ridiculous. You really don't need a gimmick to be a hero."

"What would you know? You don't do the hero thing all that often, you know," Vicky said, turning around in her chair and folding her arms.

"I live with three people who do. The fact of the matter is, reputations hurt as much as they help," Amy said. "Some villains like the thrill of a challenging fight. If you're well known, it's going to attract those sorts."

"Let them come, and break their swords upon my shield!" Vicky declared in a faux-imperious voice.

"That's what she said."

"Wh- oh my god, Amy, ew,  _ gross! _ "

"Your fault for saying it exactly like that," Amy said.

"You're the worst sister in the world, you know that?"

\---

"Goddamnit, you saved over my file, Lisa!"

\---

"Well tear out my heart with a spoon, why don't you?" Amy asked.

"Look, it's just..." Vicky sighed, rubbing her temples. "New Wave isn't just a hero team, right?"

"Yeah, I know, Carol Dallon is my mother, too," Amy said. "I've heard this spiel a million times."

"It's not just for show, but it does need to show, okay? So I need to be as attention-grabbing as possible."

"And yet none of the rest of New Wave feels the same way, and you're the only one who feels the need for a gimmick."

"That's because they already have unique-ish superpowers. I don't. I'm another dime-a-dozen Alexandria Package, and my special thing is that I can scare people a little better. That isn't a good look, Amy, and yes, it really does matter!"

"Alright, alright, I get it," Amy said. "...Have you considered a goth phase?"

\---

"So, I think that went well."

"I've had this save file since before I was a cape at all."

"Okay, so maybe a few things ended poorly," Lisa said.

"That Blaziken was level fucking one hundred."

"No shit? Damn. Anyway, the plan is going pretty smooth so far."

"Still don't like it..."

"Look, it's dead simple. We pass you off as a modern Young Da Vinci, a diamond in the rough. Rich people fucking  _ love _ that narrative. So you'll get yourself a patron, and you can demand that they accommodate me, too, since I'm your 'muse.'"

"I don't exactly like the idea of being at the end of  _ anyone's _ leash, you know. Especially since the collar's around  _ my _ throat, not yours," Kenji said. "I'm making a concerted effort to be  _ nice _ , not  _ submissive _ ."

"You're not gonna be  _ submissive _ , trust me," Lisa said.

"You think you're the only one who understands the wealthy and the powerful, here," Kenji said. "This is blatantly untrue, because I grew up in the shadow of one of the most powerful men on this planet Earth. And I have no intention of ever,  _ ever _ , reliving that experience. So you best hope that you're right, because I will  _ not _ forget that this was  _ your _ idea."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was delayed because I had to take my Computer Science exam, and forgot to set things up with my QA department beforehand.  
> Kenji's preferred mode of art is ink-wash painting in the traditional Japanese style, specifically the sort best understood by Western audiences as a form of Expressionism, aiming to capture the spirit of the subject more than the exact details. He's good, but he absolutely is not a master of the art. Or, at least, I'm pretty sure he's not a master, because I refuse to believe that he's advanced the art in any significant way by being the first person to apply Japanese ink-wash painting to an acoustic guitar. That's fucking ridiculous. Japan has had serious Western influence since the mid-19th century, and I refuse to believe that no Japanese painter saw a guitar and thought "hm, I bet I can paint something interesting on that" in all that time.


	6. Artistry, Part 2

"You know, at first I wondered if you were just a white dude going by a Japanese name," Lisa said.

"Is that a particularly common thing?" Kenji asked.

"Yeah, especially with artists. Just off the top of my head I can think of a half dozen webcomic artists who were successful enough to make their living from comics who were white guys using Japanese pseudonyms."

"That's... uh... Alright, well, I have no idea how to respond to that," Kenji said. "Well, no, I do have some idea, but it's tangential."

"It's a lazy winter sunday, and I'm not going anywhere," Lisa said. The two of them had gotten a table into their motel room, specifically a Japanese table called a kotatsu. The reason was twofold: Kenji needed a large, flat, horizontal surface to put paper on so he could paint and fulfill the commission that he'd gotten from Roland Stansfield, and Lisa needed something to keep warm with, and a table with an electric heater and a blanket built into it sounded like a great idea to her.

"Alright, well... I don't really  _ feel _ Japanese," Kenji said. "For one, I am of mixed race- one quarter Indian, one quarter Irish, and one half Japanese. I  _ did _ inherit the epicanthal folds..." He lifted his sunglasses, and Lisa studied his eyes closely.

"Oh, so you're an albino."

"Well, that too." Kenji put the sunglasses back down. "But, well, I'm fairly certain my hair should've been what told you that. The hell kind of Japanese guy has hair so white it could 'ironically' make racist jokes?"

"One who lives in America and has access to bleach?" Lisa asked. "Anyway, nevermind, we're getting sidetracked. You don't feel Japanese because you're mixed-race?"

"Well, that's part of it," Kenji said. "I'm more Japanese than I am anything else, ethnically, but  _ culturally _ ... culturally, I'm not really  _ anything _ . I was homeschooled, and my parents were very careful and deliberate with my upbringing. Sure, I speak Japanese, and sure, I know about some Japanese cultural stuff, mostly involving furniture and tools and just a little bit of art, but... well, if I belong to any culture, it is  _ American _ culture, because I was born in America, I've never  _ left _ America, and in all likelihood, I will  _ die _ in America. So... no, I don't feel Japanese. I feel American." He sighed. "See, I wasn't expecting this to be a big deal to me, but  _ apparently _ when I start getting commissions for Japanese artwork, I start thinking about this stu- Lisa get your cold-ass feet off of my leg."

"My feet are quite toasty, thank you very much," Lisa said. "Besides, it's not like you're using your lap for anything."

"I am, in fact, using it for the purpose of  _ not having your feet in it _ ," Kenji said. "Come on, this is just unprofessional."

"It's  _ family bonding time _ ," Lisa said.

"It's  _ obnoxious _ ."

"And being obnoxious is how I show affection."

"Thanks, I hate it."

Lisa cackled, and Kenji thought back on the trashy romance novels he'd stolen from a friend's bookshelf, and how it would describe a woman's laugh as musical, or something like that. They were absolutely wrong, and there was nothing at all pleasing about the sound of Lisa's horrid cackle.

"We aren't a family, Lisa," Kenji said, continuing his painting.

"You sure did call me your sister a lot more than someone who didn't think of himself as my brother would've."

"Yeah, and I claimed to be from Galveston an awful lot for a guy who's from Port Arthur. It's called lying, and I do it to everyone I meet, every time I tell them my name is Kenji Takeuchi."

"See, I've got two theories on what your  _ real _ name is," Lisa said.

"How often do I need to tell you to stop digging?"

"It's become something of a game at this point, hasn't it?" Lisa asked. "So, it's either another Japanese name, like... I dunno, Naruto Uzumaki-"

"I'm not  _ that _ culturally illiterate, you know," Kenji said, scowling.

"Or, alternatively, your real name is really,  _ incredibly _ white, like... Charles Fauntleroy Tchaikovsky."

"Tchaikovsky is Russian. Also, I  _ do _ have Indian heritage, too. My real name could very well be something like, I dunno... Safeer Khatri."

"Nah, I can tell," Lisa said. "It's something embarrassingly white, and it's Irish."

"I don't think I want to play this game anymore."

\---

_ Timeline A _

The door burst open, and Kenji hurriedly set his brush down in the ink stone, before grabbing the shotgun. He lifted it up and fired at the door, and evidently hit someone.

"Shit!"

"My second sight is blocked," Kenji whispered, moving into a crouching position, glad he'd put the kotatsu on the far side of the room, with the bed between it and the door. "They have either another precog or some sort of blocker."

"Blocker," Lisa said. "Specific to precogs."

"Shit," Kenji muttered, before snapping his fingers and conjuring a large ball of fire in the air above them, careful not to scorch the ceiling or walls. "You put that door back the way you found it or I roast all of you alive," he said more vocally. He used the flames to hide his body as he stood up, careful not to actually touch any of the fire. It wouldn't burn him, but it  _ would _ burn his hair and his clothes. "Burning to death is such an  _ awful _ way to go, don't you think?"

"Gregor! Do something!" a different voice yelled. There was a sound like people shifting around, and suddenly Kenji could truly  _ see _ once more.

**The flames are dismissed, and standing in the doorway is a very large and rather round man, who is covered in strange, hardened mounds that look like snail shells.**

Kenji held the flames close, dismissing just enough to raise the shotgun and put another slug towards the person in the door, landing the shot to Gregor's belly.

"So, if y'all are working for Coil, perhaps I should make you aware of something," Kenji said, as he walked around the bed and moved closer, while Lisa hid underneath the table. "I've killed before, and I'm not afraid to do it again. So you've got maybe five seconds 'fore I come over there an' finish what you started."

**The flames are dismissed, and the door has been closed.**

\---

_ Timeline B _

"That's fine by me," Lisa said. "I'm not exactly on a deadline, here."

"You're a demon, and you will be the death of- get your  _ fucking _ foot off my chest, damnit."

She cackled some more.

\---

"...I don't get it," Coil muttered. "This... this is not  _ normal _ , for parahumans. They do not pick up a stray and then become willing to kill for them."

"Sometimes, in a few high-security prisons, inmates are given cats," one of Coil's captains said. "They are very,  _ very _ protective of their cats. They behave better, because they know if they fuck up, they'll get their cat taken away. I remember hearing about one inmate getting killed because he spat soda on someone's cat."

"Miss Wilbourne is not a cat," Coil said flatly.

"Well,  _ obviously _ , but humans  _ bond _ with cats in roughly the same way they bond with other humans," the captain said. "Besides, the one in ten statistic is probably inaccurate, but they're still homeless kids, and the boy introduced himself by rescuing her from a fake security guard. There's probably  _ something _ going on between them."

\---

"Lisa, if you don't get your feet out of my lap, I'm going to make you sleep on the floor."

\---

"Mrrn," Coil grumbled, cupping his chin. "Damnit. Well, considering the fact that this Kenji has acquainted himself with a few of the local heroes... I do believe we will find it very difficult to work around this boy. That's it. We're switching tracks. Send a message to the agents in Baltimore- we're moving there."

\---

"Hey g- holy  _ shit _ , Dennis, your  _ hair _ ."

"Well,  _ someone _ noticed," Dennis said, elbowing Dean.

"My vision does not pick up on details so easily," Dean said defensively.

"Details? Dude, buddy, my hair looking like I'm about to fuckin' go Super Saiyan isn't a  _ detail _ ," Dennis said. His hair had been carefully sculpted into a cluster of large spikes, like some sort of anime character. Or, more specifically, like some sort of protagonist of Dragonball Z.

"My question is...  _ why? _ " Vicky asked. "Actually, no,  _ how? _ Your hair's usually really short. Is that a wig or something?"

"No, no, see," Dennis began. "My hair, most of the time, is pretty compressed and dense. Which is common for black dudes. But, this morning, I looked myself in the mirror, and I thought, 'I deserve  _ better _ .' So, I grabbed a comb and a can of hairspray, and I got to work on  _ this _ masterpiece."

"...Huh," Vicky muttered. "Well, it looks good on you."

"Oh, in other news," Dean began, setting his burger back down. "Do you recall the guitar tutor? A boy by the name of Kenji?"

"Uhh... maybe?" Vicky said.

"It was a week and a half ago," Amy supplied. "Dean talked you out of using an axe that's also a guitar."

"Ooooh,  _ now _ I remember.  _ He _ didn't squash my dreams, like a certain someone did," Vicky teased. "But, uh, what about him?"

"Well, it turned out he is also a painter, and my father commissioned a painting from him," Dean said, before taking out his phone and pulling up a picture. "He says that it symbolizes warmth and comfort with loved ones at the end of the day. Given that it is a painting of two people leaning against one another and watching the sunset, I find myself hard-pressed to disagree."

"Shit, that right there is some Eastern Expressionism, I'll tell you  _ that _ for free," Dennis muttered, his accent and a bit of patter sneaking into his voice.

"Eastern Expressionism?" Amy asked.

"Yeah, see- there's more a focus on the gestalt and the spirit than the details and the individual appearance of every little thing," Dennis said. "That looks like an ink wash, and if it  _ is _ , then it's an interesting new twist on an old art form, judging by the way they're both wearing Western-style clothing. Good shit from a guy that young."

Everyone stared at him.

"What?" Dennis said defensively. "Guy gotta have hobbies. You think I just sit around and jack off all day?"

"Ew," Amy and Vicky said in unison, followed by "Jinx!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Jinx" was a thing back in 2010, right? I remember it being a thing. I also remember it being obnoxious as hell.  
> Also, Coil only says that Lisa isn't a cat because he doesn't know what a furry is, placing him in the same boat as Kenji, Armsmaster, and Sarah Pelham.  
> Also also, fun fact about Dennis being an Anime nerd: in America, the anime fandom began with black kids. See, back in the 70s and 80s, when local TV stations were a thing, TV stations that serviced largely black communities played a bunch of anime alongside American cartoons, for a variety of reasons including 'anime is cheaper to license than American cartoons.' And that means that tons of black kids grew up watching Astro Boy instead of Looney Tunes, and that means that, up until anime became a thing in mainstream pop culture, being into anime was a black thing. Go listen to some late 80s/early 90s hip-hop, see how many anime references you hear.  
> And, for the black anime fans in the audience who already know this and got bored halfway through that author's note, here's a video teaching you how to do your hair like Dennis did, in case you don't already know how: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnQKbPS33sg


	7. Rope Tricks

"Gentlemen-" Vicky began.

"Of which there is only one in the room," Lisa said.

"Quiet. I have gathered you here with the intent of learning from you the art of standing out," Vicky said. "The two of you are tutors, yes, but you are also, to a degree, _performers_ . You stood out enough to catch my eye as I wandered through the marketplace, so clearly you know _something_ about standing out."

"And... why, precisely, do you _need_ to stand out any more than you already likely do?" Kenji asked. "Or are you attempting to stand out for reasons other than whatever the current ones are? And in what context are you looking to stand out?"

The three of them were in Vicky's bedroom, which looked to be recently cleaned, perhaps for the purpose of accommodating guests that weren't her boyfriend. The door was open, at her dad's insistence, despite the fact that Lisa was a girl and Kenji did not resemble Dean Stansfield in very many ways aside from being a male teenager with pale skin and all of his limbs.

"Okay, well, right now I _mostly_ stand out as New Wave's Alexandria Package, or flying brick as you so eloquently put it," Vicky explained. "And that's... not much at all. I'm only notable in the context of being part of New Wave... which means that I'm not contributing much to New Wave's image in the public eye, you know?"

"I get what you mean, yeah," Kenji said, nodding. "So New Wave is attempting to affect changes on a scale larger than is possible through mere street-level crimefighting, is it? Could you elaborate on what specific ideas New Wave is attempting to advance in the public eye?"

"It's about accountability," Vicky said. "The Protectorate, being part of the government, isn't accountable to anyone but Uncle Sam, instead of to the community, you know? And that means they can get away with some capital S Shenanigans. Like, uh... okay, so this is kind of far from here, but down in Houston, where Eidolon is, one of the Wards is a known killer. Red Wind, I think he's called."

"I know about him, yeah," Kenji said. "Not the best example to use, though."

"Oh _really?_ And why might _that_ be?"

"Because you are assuming an overly reductive framework in which killing people is automatically wrong, regardless of the context, which was in the news when it happened," Kenji said. "Red Wind has been the target of several kidnapping attempts, and killed exclusively in self-defense, or one time, in pursuit of a kill order. Even if he were a private citizen, he would've been found innocent of wrongdoing in a court of law."

"You sure do know a lot about Red Wind," Vicky said suspiciously.

"Are... are you insinuating that I'm Red Wind?" Kenji asked, incredulous. "Jesus, the hell kinda tinfoil do you line _your_ hat with? I'm a homeless kid and I have been for over a year. Anyway, we're getting off topic. I agree with the notion that the Protectorate, being an extension of the United States Government, is inherently untrustworthy, I just disagree with your particular example, which isn't salient to the conversation. Plus, the ethics of killing people tend to get very, very murky. Please continue."

"...Okay, well, _anyway_ , as an attempt at being more accountable to the public, New Wave doesn't do secret identities, which is why I'm not carefully phrasing this in hypotheticals through a series of catspaws," Vicky said.

"That's... one way to do it, I suppose," Kenji said.

"Yes, I get it, it's a massive security and operational risk, but by now the local villains know better than to try anything," Vicky said. "And since just about anyone can walk up to our door and complain about how our fight with Hookwolf destroyed their car, we're a lot more careful to avoid destroying cars. You see what I mean?"

"Yes, and that's a much better justification for distrusting the government than the one you provided," Kenji said.

"Here's another thing I've been thinking about working into the pitch," Vicky said. "See, my mom, Brandish, she's a lawyer, and she specializes in dealing with insurance companies to make sure that they actually cover the damage that gets caused by cape fights, even if New Wave wasn't actually involved in the fight in question."

"Hrm... okay, so the way I'm thinking about it," Lisa began, tapping her chin, "maybe say, 'New Wave is about accountability- if you have a complaint, you can take it up with us in person, and one of us will make sure the insurance companies cover it and take them to court if they don't.'"

"Hrm... okay, yeah, that works," Vicky said. "Anyway! We're getting sidetracked again. What I need is some kind of gimmick. The guitar axe is a no-go, so... any other ideas?"

"...Hrm..."

"Maybe," Kenji began carefully, "maybe something to do with, like, lassos and rope darts and shit?"

"...Elaborate, please," Vicky said.

"Okay, so, the thing about sticking out is, everything's been done before," Kenji said. "Nothing new under the sun. But, nobody's _seen_ everything. And in this day and age of real life capes, superhero comics aren't all that popular anymore, which is weird and depressing, but also it means that if Glory Girl takes a page from the book of Wonder Woman, most people aren't going to notice. Until someone _does_ , and _then_ it gets on the news, and everyone's talking about you, and how you're taking inspiration from the classics... provided you can get it out in front that you're taking inspiration, not plagiarizing."

"Okay, okay I see," Vicky said. "...Wait, do most people these days _not_ know who Wonder Woman is?"

"I mean, unless they were born before the mid 80s, no they don't," Kenji said. "These days, the idea that superhero comic books are exclusively for tremendous nerds is actually grounded in fact."

"Ahem," Lisa said pointedly.

"Oh like you're at all surprised by that," Kenji said flatly.

"Eh, no shame in being a nerd," Vicky said. "No matter how much Uber and Leet try to prove otherwise."

"I don't know who they are, so instead I'm going to steer the conversation in a more profitable direction," Kenji said. "I happen to be trained in the usage of rope darts, and while I'm not a trained ranch-hand, I _am_ a person who learned the rope dart at an early age and consequently had plenty of very throwable rope at hand, and also I lived in Texas."

"Hrm..." Victoria folded her left arm across her stomach, planting her right elbow in her left palm and rubbing her chin with her right hand. "You know... I get the feeling you're trying to upsell me, here. You _just_ happen to be trained in the usage of the rope dart and have some experience with the lasso, after it was _your_ idea that my gimmick be using a rope dart or a lasso."

"Well, sure, of _course_ I'm trying to upsell you," Kenji said with a grin. "Here's the problem, though: aside from the fact that I am clearly attempting to part you from your money, can you think of any actual flaws in my logic?"

"...I hate that you have a point."

"Course I have a point, my livelihood depends on it. Sure, maybe you find my methods a bit crass and mercenary, but the plain and simple fact of the matter is, I don't have parents, and I _do_ have bills to pay."

"Wait, are you two homeless?" Vicky asked.

"Not anymore," Lisa said. "We just managed to get ourselves an apartment, which is a lot harder than usual when you're homeless teenagers without any documentation. Our next grand trick will be to get some sort of medical insurance without having any documentation, because all of that got lost when Leviathan sank Galveston."

"Tell ya what, though," Kenji said, squaring his shoulders and sitting up straighter. "I'll give you four hours of my time for free... if you can convince Panacea to regrow my missing teeth. And get rid of the scar on my face I've been hiding with makeup."

"Tricky... but doable," Vicky said. "Depending on how good of a sob story you can weave, though, since she refuses to let herself be motivated by money."

"Oh I can just tell you the truth," Kenji said. "The scar on my face is from when I was ten and my parents left me alone for an extended period of time and I tried to feed myself. The missing teeth are from when a supervillain punched me in the face when I was thirteen."

"Holy shit, really?"

"What, you think capes are the only people with interesting lives?" Lisa asked. "The reason Kenji's paranoid about my safety is because I almost got kidnapped."

" _Holy shit_ ," Vicky whispered. "I... okay, um..." She scooted forward and then pulled the both of them into a tight hug.

"...can I help you?" Lisa asked.

"It's a hug. You two are safe now," Vicky said. "You're under my protection now."

"I'm already under Kenji's protection, and _he's_ under Samuel Colt's protection, and... and he apparently _is_ that touch-starved."

"What do you- oh my god he's crying. Dude, are you okay?"

"I think that might be the first time in literal years he's gotten a hug."

"Why haven't you hugged your adopted brother yet?"

"He just gets mad when I touch him."

"Do I, like, remind him of his mother?"

Kenji immediately weaseled out of her grasp, backing away and putting his sunglasses back in place. Before he got his eyes properly hidden, though, Vicky was able to catch a potent look of betrayal.

"Right, well," Kenji said, his voice suddenly hollow. "You have our number, give us a call to schedule a follow-up appointment whenever you're ready for one. We'll show ourselves out."

"Shit, are you oka-"

"I will be fine," Kenji said loudly. "This is _my_ issue to deal with, and I will not outsource it to any vaguely sympathetic woman I happen to come across. Goodbye, Miss Dallon."

He got up and left, and after a three second game of charades with Vicky in which Lisa expressed exasperation and apologized for Kenji's weird breakdown, Vicky asked what the hell was going on, and Lisa shrugged helplessly, she followed after him, looking thoroughly annoyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Albinism is, of course, a recessive trait, and it is entirely possible that neither of Kenji's parents are themselves albinistic. Of course, Victoria Dallon is canonically pale, platinum blonde, and has blue eyes(the most common eye color for albinos, in point of fact), so in broad strokes, it is in fact completely probable that she does, indeed, look like Kenji's mother.   
> Of course, she stops looking like Kenji's mother when you account for the fact that she isn't a late 30s Japanese woman, but the resemblance is still there if, say, you have bad eyesight as a symptom of albinism.


	8. Five Months Later

"We've been here a while," Lisa said as Kenji washed the dishes.

"Four months, two weeks, three days," Kenji said. In the privacy of their home, Kenji felt no need to cover his hair with one of several hats he'd acquired since arriving in Brockton Bay. "Same length of time since the last time I pointed a gun at someone."

"Four months, one week, two days since we met the Dallon sisters," Lisa said. "Four months and six days since we met Dean and Dennis... four months, five days since you bought that calendar and marked those days on it since for some god forsaken reason you wanted me to remember the exact dates."

"Accurate record-keeping is  _ important _ ," Kenji said. "Why do you think I'm so insistent that you keep a journal?"

"At first, I honestly thought you were just trying to make me shut up about being bored," Lisa said.

"No, record-keeping is just important," Kenji said. "For one, it's an  _ excellent _ defense against gaslighting, if you have the sense to write it in ink and where nobody can find it."

"And where did you hide  _ your _ journals?" Lisa asked. "From the sound of things, you didn't exactly grow up in a household that'd let you have privacy."

"Oh, my parents went through my things regularly, sure, but here's the thing," Kenji said. "Everyone seems to know that air vents are useless for stealth, which is a thing I was only told  _ after _ I started hiding shit in the air vents, where nobody thought to look for them, because they thought air vents were useless."

"Did you ever hide  _ actual _ shit in the air vents?"

"Not at my own home, no. I  _ did _ , however, do that at my uncle's house, which ruined his life for three entire months until he sold the house and moved, because he grew up poor and disabled and refused to pay anyone money to do anything for him."

"Your uncle sounds like a fucking idiot."

"Oh, he is. He's the dumbest man I've ever met, and I grew up with my father."

He turned off the faucet, and then blow-dried the dishes with his power.

"...God, school sucks even if you're not attending it," Lisa muttered.

"I miss our friends, too."

"Stupid goddamn finals..."

"You know the PRT is watching them."

"Yeah, yeah, Youth Guard and bureaucrats, you've told me before, it's just... I  _ could _ , very easily, just  _ alter their grades _ for them."

"You do realize that's illegal and that of these young superheroes, none of them have yet to develop a moral compass completely unshackled to the law of the land, right?"

"Buh. Buncha pansies."

"I know, I know. But as it turns out, the basis for selecting superheroes has nothing to do with being a person with strong morals, and is in fact more about being traumatized. Not actually the best way of selecting for strong morals, turns out. I know- well,  _ knew _ \- plenty of heroes who didn't seem to realize that, as parahumans, they're by definition traumatized, and thus didn't even begin to seek treatment, because they didn't think there was anything wrong with them."

"...This topic is depressing," Lisa muttered. "So, uh... Dennis' birthday is in a month."

"The hell is it with you and birthdays?"

" _ You're _ the one who's weird about them. You just let yours completely pass everyone by."

"You do realize that Japanese people don't traditionally celebrate birthdays, right?"

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah," Kenji said as he left the kitchen and sat down at the kotatsu. "Before World War 2, everyone's birthday was celebrated together on New Years- that's the day everyone got older, not the day they were actually born. But, after World War 2, there's suddenly even more Western influence in Japan then there was before, and one bit of cultural osmosis that happened was birthdays. Doesn't mean Japanese birthdays are exactly like Western ones, tho-"

"You were born in Texas and your first language was English."

"...See, this is why I don't bother lying to you. Real reason is that Dean and Dennis are Wards and therefore have access to PRT records, and I would very much like them to not have any clues that I'm anyone other than Kenji Takeuchi, slightly eccentric guitar tutor and Japanese painter."

"No, that's not the real reason, although that is  _ a _ reason."

"Alright, fine, I just didn't feel like celebrating my birthday!" Kenji sighed deeply, before squaring his shoulders and picking up an ink stick. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get to work on paying this month's rent."

\---

"What I don't understand is the timing," Miss Militia said. "Don't you have finals to be taking?"

"That was last week for me, ma'am," Solar said. "I'm officially on summer vacation."

"Ah, I see. I'm afraid it won't be a very fun vacation," Miss Militia confided. "Things have gotten somewhat tense here- a few months ago, the balance of power with the gangs shifted, and the leadership is worried. At least the beaches are somewhat nice?"

"I'm from Houston," Solar said. "If they're not covered in oil, seaweed, and medical waste, then that's better than I'm used to."

"Speaking of Houston..."

"Eidolon is still upset about it," Solar said, nodding. "He's been a lot more of a homebody, filling in for three, now four, missing heroes. He's, um... a bit overkill, though, and insufferable to be around. I don't want to talk about it."

"I understand," Miss Militia said. "I suppose Brockton Bay may not have been the best transfer for you, then."

"Eh. Not the  _ best _ , but... well, as long as I never hear about a certain grandstanding prick while I'm here, then I'll be just fine."

"Did someone say my name?" Assault asked as he poked his head out of the break room.

"I heard her say grandstanding  _ prick _ ," Battery called from inside the break room. "You've gotten better about that lately."

"No he hasn't," Miss Militia called back. "He superglued the refrigerator shut."

"You prick!"

"And here I was led to believe the Protectorate was staffed exclusively by adults," Solar said flatly.

"There's a big difference between an adult and a grown-up," Assault said. "Oooh, ask Armsmaster about City Ordinance 137B."

"Oookay then," Solar muttered. "So... where to next, ma'am?"

\---

"And this is Armsmaster, head of the Brockton Bay Protectorate," Miss Militia said as they entered the gym.

"You're... Solar, right?" Armsmaster asked, hunched over. He was in workout clothes, the only thing protecting his identity being half a cloth domino mask that tied behind his head. "Welcome to Brockton Bay. How was the flight?"

"Windy," Solar said. "Uh... Assault told me to ask about City Ordinance 137B?"

Armsmaster started chuckling, and Miss Militia sighed. "Well, first and foremost," Armsmaster began, "back in those days, I was young, and I was friends with Mouse Protector. And she was an... interesting influence on me."

"He's going somewhere with this, don't worry," Miss Militia said, with the weary tone of a woman who's heard this particular story about fifty times.

"I was sixteen, it was 1993, and City Hall was full of politicians writing up legislation to deal with the recent kerfuffles that stemmed from the mass immigration of East Asian-Americans into Brockton Bay. And right before one bill was passed into law, I wrote, on the back, with a ballpoint pen: 'Armsmaster can do whatever he wants.'"

"...Did you  _ actually _ ?" Solar asked.

"I did, and nobody has noticed yet," Armsmaster said, grinning. "I haven't  _ yet _ invoked that law, but one day, one day I will."

"It's been seventeen years, Armsmaster," Miss Militia said. "You're not a bright-eyed prankster anymore. You're everyone's middle-aged father who works as an accountant and does his taxes for fun. Honestly, you stopped being that prankster that very year. Your idea of a gag gift was an  _ umbrella _ ."

"A  _ fireproof _ umbrella," Armsmaster corrected her. "Gifted for a baby shower, to parents who live in Texas, where it doesn't rain."

"It rains every third day in Houston," Solar said. "Also, I think I know exactly which umbrella you're talking about, and it turned out to be a very useful gift."

"Oh? Oh! That's right, you're from the same city as Red Wind. How's he doing?"

"He's been missing for months."

"...Ah. Right. Apologies, it's been a while, and..."

"I get it, it's a thousand miles away, and you're busy. I don't wanna think about it, either."

"Right, right." Armsmaster sighed. "...but that umbrella joke had  _ layers _ , damnit!"

\---

"Hey Dennis," Lisa said, answering the phone while Kenji continued painting. Roland Stansfield was pretty much paying their rent, and while Kenji would prefer to diversify his clientele a bit so he wasn't reliant on the artistic tastes and potential generosity of a single very wealthy man, he was keeping their heads above water even without the meager funds gained from their very unsuccessful tutoring service. "What's up?"

_ "So, my birthday's in a month, and I was wondering if y'all felt like coming,"  _ Dennis said.  _ "It's not just gonna be us six, I  _ do _ have other friends." _

"Aw, Dennis, you should know better than to lie to a lady like that."

_ "Hey, if I can convince someone to come to my house with a gift to celebrate me getting older, then they're a friend." _

"Or gullible," Lisa said. "I'll bring Kenji with me. What do you want?"

_ "Well, that asshole got me into music theory, so any cheap musical instruments you can pick up." _

"...Dude, if that's what you told everyone else, you're going to get seventeen harmonicas."

"Or recorders," Kenji chimed in. "With or without attached Disney-themed songbooks."

"Shit, dude, Kenji raises a good point," Lisa said. "You're going to get like fifty plastic recorders."

_ "If I do, I know who not to invite next year. So, you coming?" _

"Of course. See ya."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LET ARMSMASTER HAVE A PERSONALITY YOU COWARDS!


	9. Party Time

"Okay, so, it's... four harmonicas," Dennis began, "three recorders, a psychedelic sweet potato ocarina that's probably from, like, the Vietnam War, a ukulele that looks suspiciously expensive-"

"I haggled the salesman down to fifty," Dean chimed in.

"Dean I'm gonna hit you," Dennis said. "And also a three-string cigar box guitar that has... something... written on it."

"It's a pair of kanji that mean 'music' and 'talent,'" Kenji lied. It  _ actually _ said 'I like asses.'

"Cool, cool. So... how've you and your sister been holding up?"

"Eh, she's had pretty bad cabin fever until a week or so ago when everyone finished finals," Kenji said. "Turns out New Jersey and Texas do those at different times."

"Yeah, learned that myself recently," Dennis said. "My, uh... my cousin, from Houston, Rebecca."

Kenji glanced over at Rebecca, who was very absorbed in a conversation with Sophia. He then gave Dennis a look that said 'You are brazenly lying to my face right now, but I can't tell you that because I am also lying to your face.'

It didn't convey very well due to Kenji's insistence on wearing sunglasses even indoors.

"She wanted out of Houston for the summer," Dennis continued. "So her and her mom came up here. Apparently Mom's one of those 'work from home' types, so coming up here wasn't that big a disruption."

"Damn spoiled Houston...ites? Fuck, I never bothered learning what someone from Houston is called," Kenji said. "Whatever. I forgot where I was going with this. I'm gonna go grab a drink, you want me to grab you anything?"

"Nah, I'm good."

\---

"So these are just, like. The Brockton Bay Wards," Kenji whispered, a shroud of silence and stilled air falling over him and Lisa. "Minus Triumph, who I guess Dennis just doesn't like."

"Oh definitely," Lisa whispered back. "Rebecca-"

"-can read lips, from what I've read. I know who they all are, though. I have eyes, too."

"Yeah, yeah. You tend to miss things, though."

"Not  _ everything _ . For example, I  _ didn't _ miss the way Challenger was looking at me. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a skirt to chase."

\---

"So who's that Lisa girl?" Rebecca asked.

"Oh, her and her brother Kenji are friends we met about... oh, five months ago?" Vicky said. "Kenji's a tutor- he's half the reason I got an A in math this semester."

"And Lisa?" Rebecca asked.

"You know, I don't know what her deal is," Vicky said. "Amy, you talk to her all the time, what's her deal?"

"I... couldn't really say," Amy said nervously. "Um... she's pretty? And charming?"

"Hrm..." Rebecca rubbed her chin, humming thoughtfully.

"I'm pretty sure they're capes but, like, after three weeks of stakeouts, we're also pretty sure they're not villains," Vicky said. "So, until we find proof that they  _ are _ ... we're just gonna let that sleeping dog lie."

"Did I just hear Victoria Dallon advocate for restraint and mercy?" Amy asked, putting aside her nerves to sound incredulous.

"Fuck off," Vicky said.

\---

"You're new in town, right?" Lisa asked.

"Yeah, only been here a few weeks," Rebecca said. "I'm from Houston."

"So I've been told. What do you say to a girl's night out tonight?" Lisa slung an arm around Rebecca's waist- she stood about six and a half feet tall, so a shoulder was somewhat out of the question. "Y'know, help you get acquainted with the more interesting sights in Brockton Bay."

"That... sounds great," Rebecca said. "Um... might not be tonight, though, I might be busy. I'd have to check."

"Can't be  _ that _ busy," Lisa said.

"Um..."

"Listen, I need to be out of the house for tonight," Lisa said. "Please."

Rebecca turned to look at Kenji, who was currently flirting with a very receptive Gianni.

"...Ah," Rebecca muttered. "Okay, yeah, I... get that. I'll see what strings I can pull if I  _ am _ busy."

"Thank you so very, very much."

\---

"...So I hear you gave an umbrella as a gag gift," Dauntless said.

"Powder and Blizzard were having a baby shower," Armsmaster said. "Texas is well-known for being arid, and additionally, I fireproofed it to a ludicrous degree, because Blizzard controls ice."

"...okay, yeah, that  _ is _ pretty funny," Dauntless said. "Oh, I asked Hannah- 'parently she gave 'em an Arabian scarf?"

"Cemedani," Armsmaster corrected him. "She's Kurdish. That's their word for it."

"Right. But, god, I'm just imagining the conversation you two had. 'What did you send, Colin?' 'Oh, a priceless Tinkertech umbrella that can be used to ladle molten steel. You?' 'Oh, uh. A scarf.'"

"In her defense, it was a very nice scarf. Besides, Chevalier mailed them a gun."

"He what now."

"The early days of the Protectorate were, pardon my French, absolutely fucking wild."

"No shit. Some heroes have a baby in Texas and somehow every asshole in New England sends them a present?"

"Well, Powder and Blizzard weren't 'some heroes,' first and foremost," Armsmaster said. "They are-  _ were _ \- Eidolon's closest friends, and Houston's longest-serving heroes. Also, the Protectorate, during 1993, was not the forefront of America's superheroics, but rather, a ragtag band of misfits and their dog."

"Ooooh."

"So the mailing list for that was less... Powder and Blizzard expecting gifts from a thousand strangers and more Powder and Blizzard expecting gifts from thirty to fifty coworkers. And, again, they were Eidolon's friends. Very important parahumans- in different ways than, say, you and I, or Chevalier or Myrrdin, but still important."

"Right, right. It just feels... weird, and clandestine."

"That's just how it is sometimes," Armsmaster said. "Honestly, it was the most innocuous part of the whole arrangement."

"Oh no."

"The, ah... how do the kids put it? The teal deer of the situation-"

"The  _ what now? _ "

"I think it means in a nutshell?"

"Do you mean 'TL;DR?'"

"...Actually, no, I now mean teal deer. At any rate, Powder had an impregnation fetish."

"Oh that is the absolute worst thing you could've said. I'm leaving now. Goodbye."

\---

"So everything on the Boardwalk is hideously expensive, and most of it is hideous just in general," Vicky explained. "The  _ real _ shopping happens here, on the border between the only Chinatown on the entire East Coast and downtown in general. Over there is an East Asian art supply shop, and for ten dollars you can either get a T-shirt with your name written on it in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, or get told that your name is completely unpronounceable in every major East Asian language."

"I get a shirt with my name on it every time we pass by," Amy said. "Just to remind Vicky who's boss."

"Yeah, Amy, you sure do have me beat at having a name that can be pronounced in foreign languages," Vicky said flatly. "Congratulations."

"Mine's pronounceable in East Asian languages," Rebecca said. "A friend of mine would always write my name in kanji whenever he wrote something specifically aimed at me."

"Aw, that's cute."

"I suppose," Rebecca said with a shrug. "I'm a whole entire lesbian, so it's kinda hard to see  _ anything _ a boy does as cute, but I guess, yeah."

"Wait, you're gay?" Amy asked.

"Yeah," Rebecca said. "Not every lesbian is a white girl with dyed hair and an undercut, you know. Some of us are black and have too much hair for hair dye to be practical."

"Are you single?" Vicky asked.

"Unfortunately, yeah," Rebecca said with a sigh.

"I  _ might _ know a girl who can change that."

\---

"Kenji."

"Look, she wanted to stay the night, and I didn't see a good reason to say no."

"How about 'the morning is going to be hella awkward because I don't live alone,' because that sure as fuck was true."

"I didn't say I was seeing very well at the time."

"Look, just... promise me it's not gonna be a regular thing, alright? I don't need to be reminded that you fuck."

"Gianni's leaving town in a month or two for college," Kenji said. "Said she's eager to leave Brockton Bay behind her."

"Yeah, no wonder why," Lisa muttered, sipping at her coffee.

"...what do you mean?" Kenji asked. "Brockton Bay's a pretty nice town. I mean, yeah, it's got issues, but..."

"Gee, Kenji, I wonder why the fat black girl might not wanna stick around Brockton Bay when the biggest gang in town is a bunch of neo-Nazis."

"They're  _ WHAT?! _ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be fair to Kenji, he doesn't get out much, and up until now, nobody bothered to tell him about Empire 88, because they figured he already knew.


	10. The Dogmeat Bar And Grill

"So what've you got?" Kenji asked.

"Well, first and foremost, I've got a database on my laptop that's been webscraping PHO and news sites for anything related to the Empire," Lisa said. "There's a nice, user-friendly interface that I use for collating information, making graphs, all that fun stuff."

"...Why."

"This past month has been  _ very _ boring for me."

"So you compiled a database on a white nationalist criminal organization."

"Some teenagers jack off, some play video games," Lisa said with a shrug. "The walls in this apartment are uncomfortably thin, and I don't really like video games, so I learned how to program in Python and decided that I had a perfect real-world problem to approach with it."

"Well, I'm glad you did it..." Kenji muttered.

"Don't be too glad," Lisa said. "I basically just downloaded a forum off the internet. I have yet to actually go through all this information and actually process it. So unless you are, somehow, a faster and better analyst than I am, then you're gonna have to cool your heels a week or two."

"A  _ week?! _ "

"They're not invaders at the gate," Lisa said. "The situation is bad, yes, but it's not entirely  _ urgent _ . The city's survived them this long, it can survive a little while longer while we prepare to deal with them instead of just running off half-cocked."

"...Hate that you have a point. Can you at least focus your efforts on-"

"One target? No. Because then we have to  _ pick _ one target to start with, and doing that with incomplete information will be disastrous."

"You underestimate me," Kenji said flatly. "But... oh well. Two weeks longer of peace... god. Remind me again why I have to do something about this, instead of just letting the other heroes do it?"

"Because the United States government is institutionally pretty lenient towards white nationalists, and thus the Protectorate is under orders to, ahem, keep the peace, and none of New Wave feels like going on trial for murder in the first degree."

Kenji sighed. "Yeah... okay, I'm glad we're on the same page as far as whether Nazis  _ deserve _ to die, but from a materialist slash tactical slash strategic standpoint, do they  _ need _ to die?"

"Just from a cursory search, a few of them absolutely need to," Lisa said. "They've  _ tried _ Birdcaging Hookwolf, but he keeps breaking out of the transports, and then coming back here because unfortunately he seems to  _ like _ it here."

"Well, we have a good candidate for a first target already," Kenji said. "Prison rules dictate that you establish your cred by killing someone. Or, alternatively, finding the biggest, toughest guy, and then beating him up. I'm pretty sure that if you combine the two, it'll make for a  _ great _ first impression."

"You're assuming that you  _ can _ kill Hookwolf," Lisa said. "A cursory look tells me that he turns into a giant metal dog made of spikes, hooks, knives, and hatred. You, on the other hand, are a Thinker with a neat little air control power."

"Did you forget about this already?" Kenji asked, snapping the fingers of his right hand and conjuring a little ball of flame about an inch above his hand.

"Yes, your little piddly cigarette lighter is  _ really _ gonna do a number on Hookwolf."

"Look," Kenji said, dismissing the flame and shaking his hand like he'd just washed it and didn't have a towel. "Trust me to know what I'm doing here, okay? I've been doing it for nearly six years, and I've had ample opportunity to get myself killed for doing it wrong."

"Alright, alright," Lisa said. "Still. Two weeks. Because  _ you _ need to figure out what the hell you're doing for a costume, and a cape persona, and if you can't figure anything out, I'm going to make you dress up like Sasuke Uchiha."

"...There's irony to that which you can't afford to figure out right now, and which I will take with me to the grave," Kenji said. "Right. I've got a few ideas. I'll start making phone calls."

\---

"So, another instrument?" Dean asked.

"Indeed," Kenji muttered. "It's simply obscene, how much money one is expected to pay for a goddamned violin. Like, buddy, it's not a fucking Rolls Royce. It's a wooden box with strings on it."

"...While I am not a luthier myself, I  _ do _ believe there is ever so slightly more to it than  _ that _ ."

"That's because you're a filthy heathen," Kenji said.

"I understand that you said that in jest, but as a Jewish man, I do not find it particularly funny."

"Ah. Right, sorry." Kenji set a broom handle on the table saw and reached for the power switch.

"Do you know how to use a table saw?" Dean asked, watching worriedly.

"Yes, I do," Kenji lied as he hit the power button. He carefully cut the broom handle to length with the use of the table saw sled, and turned the table saw off with an internal sigh of relief. "...Didn't know you were Jewish, though."

"I will confess, I am not the most observant of Jews," Dean said. "My father always said, 'I don't practice Judaism because I'm already very good at it.'"

"Did you just use a contraction?"

"In the process of quoting another person," Dean said. "Yes, I am intimately aware that I do not use contractions. It is on purpose."

"For  _ what _ purpose?"

"Because nobody else does it."

Kenji paused and turned to face Dean, staring for a few seconds, before slowly turning back to the broom handle and the cigar box.

"At any rate," Dean said, "I am curious- do you follow any particular faith?"

"I think the word for me is... deist, perhaps?" Kenji said, measuring and marking the broom handle for a notch at one end. The intent was to create an angled slot into which the head could be inserted, so that head would be at an angle rather than straight, which would cause issues with the strings and tuners. "I believe that there is a God, but I don't worship him, or really give that much of a shit about him. It's not a faith I inherited from my parents, either, this is... something I came to on my own."

"Oh? And how did you arrive there?" Dean asked. "Assuming the question is not horribly invasive."

"Well, perhaps some elaboration on what I believe about God would help," Kenji said. "See, God is an asshole. He hates all of us and wants us all to suffer. And some of us, myself included, he hates a bit more than usual. That's why I was born an albino, also known as 'half allergic to sunlight,' in the sunny state of Texas. That's why I was born in Galveston, and why Leviathan sank my home beneath the Gulf of Mexico, leaving my sister and I homeless."

"...Ah."

"My turn: since you go to an actual school and like. Talk to people. You're more likely to know this than I am."

"Alright... ask away..."

"What the  _ fuck _ is wrong with Christians?"

"Oh I have no fucking clue."

\---

In this day and age, there were three general sorts of neopagans: high schoolers who thought it sounded cool, queer witches, and Nazis who were more in touch with their roots than the other white nationalists who worshipped a homeless Israeli anarchist who famously said that all rich people are going to hell. Many Nazis  _ loved _ Norse mythology, and a few went so far as to worship their own ideas of what the Norse Gods should be.

Kenji knew this much, and so when he had to come up with a cape persona for the express purpose of fighting Nazis, his mind immediately leapt to Norse mythology, and then to Loki, on account of the fire powers that were frequently misattributed to Loki due to the existence of a fire demigod named Logi.

At least one trashy white christian teenager, when he learned about this, proclaimed that he was glad Christianity came about so that people wouldn't have to keep track of this stuff. He would then go on to quote Chris Rock to defend his right to hate black people and call them racial slurs.

That, of course, happened elsewhere. In Brockton Bay, Kenji was wearing a fairly alright Marvel Comics' Loki cosplay, and stepped into the Dogmeat Bar and Grill, playing Turkey In The Straw on his brand new violin.

"...Now this is just fucking ridiculous," Hookwolf said as he stood up from his table at the back of the bar. "Look, I'm used to independents in stupid costumes coming to kill me, but this? This is just  _ insulting _ . Get out of my sight until you're ready to take this fight serio-"

In response, Kenji yanked the bow across the strings harshly, and evacuated a cone-shaped area of air. He filled the vacuum with hydrogen gas, the larval stage of his flame, and then released his grip on the air. All this happened nigh-instantaneously, and had the upshot of acting like a shaped charge and shooting a gout of hydrogen flame at the bartender and the many bottles of alcohol directly behind the bartender.

Alcohol did not typically burn very well- alcohol vapors were flammable, but liquid alcohol wasn't gunpowder. However, a hydrogen flame was far,  _ far _ more than enough to vaporize the alcohol within the bottles, popping corks and shattering glass with pressure as the fumes did their best to escape. The alcohol vapors then mixed with the air, which hadn't yet run out of oxygen, and caught fire, expanding even further.

Total elapsed time: two seconds. End result: a large fireball and lots of shattered glass everywhere. Kenji, in the midst of the chaos, didn't even get his hair messed up, as everything seemed to flow around him, leaving him untouched as he glared at Hookwolf.

"I don't think I will," Kenji said in a vaguely European accent, once the noise died down. "Just a warning- I don't believe in an innocent skinhead. The only mercy you worms will get is that I don't care enough to aim at you."

"...Hrmph," Hookwolf muttered, stepping forward. "Fine. You've got my attention, brat." He changed rather quickly, metal spines and blades jutting from his joints and quickly overtaking his fleshy human form. He fell forwards and caught himself on forelegs of metal that sprouted from his shoulders, and it suddenly made perfect sense to Kenji why he was called 'Hookwolf.'

Kenji, for his part, wordlessly began playing again.

\---

"Mornin'," Velocity mumbled blearily as he trudged into the breakroom. "How're you?"

"I'm actually doing very well, thank you for asking," Armsmaster said, handing Velocity a large mug of hot, fresh coffee. "All this nostalgia recently has put me in a good mood. How are you?"

"Mmn." Velocity drained his mug. "Been better."

"Oh no," Armsmaster said. "What's wrong?"

"Bad dreams," Velocity said. "Don't wanna talk about it."

"Guys holy shit!" Dauntless yelled as he stormed into the break room. "They found Hookwolf dead in the ashes of a burned-down bar!"

"...I don't think I'm doing so well anymore," Armsmaster muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hookwolf is only tough if you don't have the equivalent of an unlimited supply of small thermobaric warheads.


	11. Low Key

"And here we see reason why there was not a kill order on Hookwolf," Miss Militia said. "Some vigilante went and killed him  _ anyway _ , and in the process caused severe collateral damage. Property damage near a hundred thousand dollars, most of which was fire damage, three unrelated deaths, and seven people in the burn ward."

"Holy shit," Assault muttered, staring at the report. "This is... jesus."

"I'm not sure they  _ are  _ unrelated," Battery said. "It says here the corpses were, in addition to being severely burned, lacerated all over, and had some shards of glass embedded in them."

"And?"

"And you don't end up dead on the floor of a bar with glass in your face by walking by," Battery said. "These people were inside the bar when things went down."

"So... you're implying that these corpses were Empire 88 members?" Miss Militia asked.

"I, for one, don't know a single non-Nazi who would daydrink in the same room as Hookwolf, and if you  _ do _ ..." Battery shuddered a little. "Get them professional help, because it sounds like they need it."

Armsmaster trudged into the room, his spirit broken like a pinata made of dried spaghetti that wouldn't fit into the pot.

"Guess who just got  _ yelled at _ ," he said in a hollow, broken sing-song voice. "Hate my job..."

He collapsed face-first onto the couch, and Assault leaned over to pat the back of his head.

"Higher-ups upset Hookwolf bit it, are they?" Assault asked.

"Very!" Armsmaster said, muffled by the couch. "'We need to minimize parahuman casualties, Armsmaster, we need all hands on deck for the Endbringers, Armsmaster, and losing Hookwolf for the three or four days a year when he's actually useful is really bad, Armsmaster! Plus, Armsmaster, think of our image! We can't let people think Brockton Bay is this awful, violent city where capes die constantly, Armsmaster!'  _ Fuck _ Hookwolf, he's about as useful against an Endbringer as a roll of paper towels! I'm  _ glad _ he's dead, and if it wasn't for the past hour-long meeting I just sat through, I'd find the guy who did it and buy them a fucking pony!"

"So, what's the plan?" Miss Militia asked.

"I don't know yet," Armsmaster said with a sigh as he got back up. "I am. Not in a good headspace. Brainstorm some ideas, write them down. I'm going to go clear my head."

\---

"Ah, you're here," Dean muttered, before grunting as he got up. "Pardon the incense. I... hoped it would help. How does Kenji like the violin?"

"Haven't seen him this excited in months," Lisa said, walking into the spare room where Dean and Dennis received guitar lessons. She left the door open, a concession to Kenji's ever-present caution, which she insistently referred to as paranoia because she enjoyed annoying him.

"That is good to hear," Dean said. "Please, take a seat, make yourself comfortable." He put the incense out, and sat back down. "I suppose you must be curious why I wished to speak with you specifically."

_ Worried, anxious... insecure. Needs advice, guidance. _

"Mhm," Lisa hummed as she dropped onto one of the chairs. "But I'm guessing that you needed some advice, possibly of the feminine variety. Like, say... relationship advice?"

Dean winced, inhaling air through clenched teeth. "I suppose I am, in fact, that obvious. I..." He sighed. "It... has to do with your brother, in a way."

"What's he done this time?" Lisa said, cocking an eyebrow as she wracked her mind.  _ Surely _ Kenji was smart enough not to sleep with a cape's girlfriend...

"He is, um..." Dean fumbled for a word in silence for a few seconds, going on something of a facial journey. "Distractingly sexy, I suppose, is one way to put it." He cleared his throat before continuing. "At Dennis' birthday party, he was talking to a girl... Gianni, I believe? And... Victoria was close enough to eavesdrop, and was clearly eavesdropping, and... may or may not have lit up like a Christmas tree."

_ Obviously uncomfortable with how attractive Kenji is. Does not fully understand why, _

Lisa smirked internally, but kept her expression neutral. If Vicky lit up like a Christmas tree, then Dean was lighting up like the Menorah of Jerusalem. "Yeah, I see the issue, but I don't exactly see what I can do. Unless you want me to hide his deodorant? Lemme tell ya,  _ everyone _ will be cured of thinking he's sexy if they smell him after a workout."

_ Is even more uncomfortable. Partially imagining the smell of unwashed teenage boy post-exercise. Partially imagining in-shape teenage boy post-exercise. _

"I am... not entirely finished," Dean said. "The next day, I spoke to Victoria about it, and things... may have escalated a bit. And... There are... a variety of factors in play, some of which I am not fully at liberty to discuss, that lead me to think that... our relationship may or may not be meant to last, or particularly stable." 

_ Thinks she's using him. For information and resources. Wards and Protectorate documentation and handbooks. _

Lisa closed her eyes and breathed deeply, centering herself.  "Okay, I see your problem. Are the extenuating factors anything to do with cape stuff?" She figured that if the question was vague, he might be more likely to answer honestly.

"It, erm, uh..." Dean squirmed, obviously hideously uncomfortable. "Do you... share your brother's attitude towards professionalism? He was very firm that I should not trust him, due to our relationship being, ultimately, professional in nature."

_ Wants to trust, has been told he shouldn't. _

"As far as I'm concerned, we're friends, and friends keep secrets for friends." Plus, well, Dean's dad paid their rent,  _ and  _ Lisa had something going on called 'morals.'

Dean sighed, and bent over, leaning in close. "I, erm... may or may not be the parahuman known colloquially as 'Gallant.' And Victoria may or may not spend the majority of our date nights reading and studying my Wards handbooks."

Lisa covered her mouth in feigned surprise; her internal grin's cheeks had begun to hurt. "You're re- okay, okay Dean, I promise to keep it a secret." She collected herself for a moment, face moving to genuine seriousness. "So, you're worried Victoria is just using you for your... cape stuff?"

"It is one of many worries, yes. There are... other concerns. With the Protectorate, my future is uncertain, and I may end up transferred out of Brockton Bay, without much say in the matter." He sighed. "It is... honestly, a stressful situation. And I am uncertain what to do."

"It sounds like you know what you want to do, to me," Lisa said, watching his expression. "Or else you wouldn't be hinting at it so much, or inviting me here to tell you to do it."

"It is more... that I want you to tell me the alternatives. I... really do not want things to end this way. It would hardly be fair on anyone involved."

"Well, you could keep dating, go long distance if you get shuffled out of Brockton and resent the whole experience, then meet back up one day and have a long, loveless marriage; or you could accept the fact that you're just not as invested as you were at the start of this relationship, have an honest talk with Vicky, air the feelings, and see where that gets you. Or you could just start making out with another girl in front of her, they're all equally valid options"

"I... do not think I will ever be able to properly convey just how little any of those options appeal to me." Dean wrung his hands a bit. "In case you have yet to notice, Victoria is prone to... dramatic displays of emotion. Which make frank discussions very, very difficult to have, especially with her aura."

Lisa placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him. "I know, Dean. It's going to suck. A lot. But unless you have a plan D, that's about all you can do. It's only fair to her."

He inhaled deeply, then pulled away, stuck his face into a pillow, and then, very muffled and faint... "FUCK!"

Lisa jolted a bit; this was the first time she'd heard Dean swear in their six months of being in the same room for an hour a week at minimum. "Yeah, this part sucks Dean, but you're doing the right thing. She's got Amy, she'll be fine. Might not talk to you for a few weeks, but it'll work out."

Dean pulled his face out of the pillow, and groaned loud enough that everyone in the house could probably hear it. "It's just... Dennis said the same thing." Holy shit, was that a contraction? "And, well... god, shouldn't've gone to him for help in the first place. Son of a bitch's over the damn moon for me... I just..." He groaned some more.

Lisa genuinely hadn't seen that coming. "Oh, wow, yeah that's..." She inhaled sharply through her teeth. "Are you, I mean, interested back?" She found herself lost for words for the first time in years.

"No, I'm straight. It's just... God, fuck being an empath. Fuck everything about it. I don't want to hurt Dennis by turning him down, which I am going to have to do at some point if I do not find a way to repair this particular relationship." He sighed. "Apologies, I... this has been fairly stressful, as I am certain you can imagine. But hopefully you understand what, specifically, I am looking for."

"A little sympathy, some advice to make it go smoother?" Lisa sighed. "Sorry, sympathy I can do, but I'm not a cape like you,"  _ technically true, _ "I can't make the problem go away with a snap of my fingers. You're going to have to be a big boy, and solve this yourself."

"Well, what's the point of having money if I can't use it to pay people smarter than me to solve the problems I can't?" Dean chuckled ruefully. "Your brother, we've been speculating about what he really is. If he happens to be a hitman, I'll pay any sum he cares to name to shoot me dead in the street."

Lisa swallowed audibly. "That's. Not funny. Don't joke about that."

"Ah, apologies. I... suppose that was rather tasteless." He cleared his throat. "Further apologies to you and your brother. I imagine this... cape horseshit, as Dennis puts it, is rather tiring for outsiders."

"It's not that bad, honestly. More interesting than a certain nerd talking about comics, at least." She patted the back of his hand, before standing up and brushing off her legs. "I've got to get going, we've had takeout for the past four nights and I'm pretty sure if we don't cook tonight my internal organs will rebel. Besides, you look like you could use some time to think this stuff through."

"Thank you. I... have quite a bit to think about, yes. Thank you for your time."

\---

"So, how'd the date go?" Amy asked.

"Rose is nice and all, but..." Rebecca sighed. "But good lord, that girl just can't shut the fuck up."

"Yeah, she's like that," Amy said. "Vicky's kinda like that too, but... more endearing about it. Rose is just really self-absorbed."

"Plus, like... her last name," Rebecca said. "I just can't get over that last name."

"What's wrong with Corcoran?"

"A friend of mine was named that," Rebecca said. "A friend I am no longer in touch with, who I would  _ really _ like to stop thinking about."

"That's fair," Amy said. "So how did Rose spend her weekly eight hours on Wikipedia?"

"Oh lord," Rebecca muttered. "That girl does  _ not _ know how conversations work. She just fucking  _ monologued _ at me for twenty whole minutes about, fucking. Cameras. Like, good lord, woman, do I look like I care? When's it  _ my _ turn to talk?  _ Do _ I get a turn?" Rebecca sighed. "So, not that I mind talking to you, but I was  _ kinda _ here to talk to Vicky, not stand on the patio."

"You... don't want to come in right now," Amy said nervously. "In fact, take me with you."

"Uh..."

A very loud and very angry scream was heard from upstairs, followed by the sound of a window breaking, followed by the faint crack of a cell phone hitting the pavement on the other side of the street.

"Ah, I understand perfectly now. Yeah, let's go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "But Horizon, you could've shown us the breakup!" I could've, but I really, really didn't want to, and what you imagine of that hideous clusterfuck is probably way more melodramatic and characteristically teenaged than anything I could write, partially because I've only been through one ever, and I was a college student and a legal adult when that one happened, and I was sufficiently levelheaded at the time that I didn't get overly upset about it(at the time).  
> That being said, it was enough to teach me this lesson I will now pass on to you, the reader:  
> Don't fucking break up with people over the phone.


	12. The White Death

"You don't seem too terribly interested in the fact that your mere presence accidentally ruined a relationship," Lisa said.

" _ You're _ the one that keeps trying to be friends with them," Kenji said, tossing some veggies in a wok. "I don't give a damn about any of 'em."

"Okay, first of all, I'm not  _ trying  _ to be friends with them, I simply  _ am _ friends with them," Lisa said. "Second, that's pretty callous of you, don't you think? You've known these people for, what, six months? We met them at the start of your stint here in the Bay, and unless we get run out of this town, too, we're probably gonna know them for a long time."

"If they were normal people, yeah," Kenji said. "Unfortunately, they're all heroes, and therefore every one of them is a dead man walking."

"Oh come on, they're not  _ doomed _ ."

"Nearly six years I was in the Wards, Lisa," Kenji said. "Not a year went by I didn't bury a friend. You don't wind up with callouses if there isn't something wearing at you in the first place, you know."

"Okay, sure, being a cape is dangerous, I'll grant you that," Lisa said. "But considering that Amy's the platonic ideal of 'healer,' her sister's basically invincible, Dean's just the right blend of unimportant and influential to avoid any real danger, and Dennis can stop time... I have faith in them."

"Copycat," Kenji said. "Her power was that, when she touched a cape, she could use their power. Pretty big deal, y'know? She wasn't local- she was from Seattle." He paused as he poured veggies out of the wok and into a pair of bowls that he'd just finished filling with rice. "Her funeral was closed-casket."

"Mm."

"So no, I do  _ not _ have faith in these kids," Kenji said. "No point getting intimate with a bunch of coffin jockeys. You wanna get to know the lambs headed to slaughter, go right on ahead, but leave me out of it."

"You're the one who had sex with Challenger."

"Oh, believe me, it is  _ very _ possible to have sex with someone without actually giving a damn about them. It's just usually a bad idea." He handed Lisa a bowl and a pair of chopsticks, and sat down across from her. "At any rate, this relationship business is just run-of-the-mill teen drama, which is hard for me to make myself care about for what should be blindingly obvious reasons."

"Because you're an emotionally stunted gremlin who is allergic to feelings?"

"No, and shut up. The reason I don't care about teen drama is because it's a bunch of petty horseshit when cast against a backdrop of multiple life-or-death situations. It's-" He went silent, pulling his revolver and standing up. Lisa's eyes went wide, and she darted from her chair into the kitchen, hiding behind the counter so she would be able to hear without the risk of getting shot. Kenji flung the door open, pointing his revolver directly into the face of his visitor. "I do believe I was very clear on what would happen if I ever saw you again."

"You still know how to use that thing?" the man asked. He was six feet even, with short blonde hair so platinum it was almost white done up in an obnoxiously ugly and spiky style, and one bright blue eye. He was wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt for a band nobody had ever heard of, least of all a graphic designer or anyone else who knew how to make a t-shirt not look like shit. "Thought you was dead, li'l bro."

"Hell, I thought I was dead, too," Kenji said, cocking the revolver. "Turned out I was just in New Jersey."

"So who's the broad hiding-" He screamed in pain as Kenji pistol-whipped him in the side of the head.

"O brother of mine, you  _ know _ that's no way to refer to a lady," Kenji said, grabbing the man by hair and pulling him into the apartment, where he continued yelling. "So what name are people calling you these days?"

"You bastard!" he yelled.

"That's  _ you _ , not me.  _ I _ am a perfectly legitimate child," Kenji said.

"He called you little bro," Lisa said as she stepped back out into the main room of the apartment. "I'm guessing you know this clown?"

"Yep, and  _ he's _ the literal bastard," Kenji said. "My older half brother. Just so you know, Blue, I'll finish the damn job if you call me anything other than Kenji. It's what I go by these days. You got a different name these days?"

"Justin Turner," he said, clutching at his bloodied face. "You asshole!"

"Justin, when someone shoots you in both knees, cuts out your eye, says 'If I ever see you again I'm going to kill you,' and leaves you to die in the forest, you don't get to act surprised when they aren't happy to see you," Kenji said flatly. "...and how the shitting fuck did you  _ survive _ that, anyhow?"

"Yeah, usually that kills people," Lisa said. "Or leaves them in a wheelchair."

"Set the forest on fire," Justin said, forcing a grin as he turned to look at Lisa. "That sure as hell got some attention. After that, well, I had some money to spend from other jobs. Got myself to this guy up in Boston, he fixed my knees. Couldn't do anything for my eye, though."

"...You set the forest on fire," Lisa said flatly.

"Yeah. The hell else was I gonna do?"

"Yeah, my half-brother is an idiot," Kenji said. "I'm well aware. Speaking of Mr. Turner's idiocy, why the  _ hell _ are you here? You knew I'd kill you slowly."

"Oh, you wouldn't-"

Kenji grabbed Justin by the hair again, and slammed him face-first into the table, breaking his nose and splattering blood across the surface of the table, a few droplets ending up on the underside of their still-full bowls.

"You're not leaving here alive," Kenji growled, putting the muzzle of his gun to the base of Justin's skull. "Every breath you take is a gift I give you, and you  _ will _ repay my kindness with information."

"T- Kenji,  _ please _ ," Justin begged, trying to twist his head so he wasn't directly face-down on the table. "I- I wanted to, to talk. We're family, and, and with Dad, and, your mom... We're all we have left. I- I didn't tell nobody where you were, I just... I just wanted to talk, to my brother."

"No," Kenji said flatly. "Now who the hell have you been working for?"

"...Empire," Justin admitted, quietly. "They promised me so much... all they really had to say was that they'd treat me right, like a  _ person _ instead of an unwanted cat. It's all I've really wanted, from you or from Dad... Really, Bro, they're not as bad as they seem."

"That's some heavy shit," Lisa muttered.

"Meh," Kenji said with a shrug. "Doesn't really change things. Just means if I wasn't already in the mood to kill him, this would put me in one. Lisa, if you don't mind, fetch me the chef's knife."

"Bro!"

"Historians have a word for those who joined the Nazis, not out of bigotry, but out of other reasons," Kenji said as Lisa walked back into the kitchen. "Like greed, or patriotism, or a desire for community, or anything else like that. Do you know what that word is, Mr. Turner?" Kenji lifted Justin's face up from the table, and looked him in the eyes.

"...Nazi?"

"Eyup. Because your motivations don't fucking matter." Kenji began dragging Justin to the bathroom.

"I'm your brother!" Justin protested. "You can't do this to me!"

"The first time we met, you attempted to  _ kidnap me _ ," Kenji said flatly, opening the door and throwing Justin over his hip into the bathtub. Justin hit his head harshly against the wall, hard enough to break the skin. "Ah, hell, that's gonna be a pain to clean up. Anyway! This is the third time I've ever seen you, Mr. Turner, and you are no brother of mine."

"Here," Lisa said, passing Kenji the knife handle-first. "Dunno why you wanted that specifically. You already have a gun."

"Simple," Kenji said, handing Lisa the revolver as he took the knife. "Bullets aren't reliably stopped by flesh and bone. Since I'm about to kill a man in my own home, I don't want bullets overpenetrating and going into the walls."

"Kenji, please," Justin begged, his one eye tearing up. "Please, don't kill me. I don't want to die, Kenji, please."

"Tough shit," Kenji said, slashing Justin's left shoulder, cutting the tendons. "You knew this would happen."

Justin's eye sparked with blue lightning, and he raised his right hand. Kenji snapped his fingers, and the lightning from Justin's hand took a ninety degree turn and shot into the electrical socket's ground connector, following a path of flame.

"I told you to get out of my life and stay gone," Kenji said, as though Justin hadn't even tried to resist. He grabbed Justin's wrist with his free hand, snapping it with a flick of the elbow, before severing the tendons of Justin's right shoulder. "I told you that I wouldn't go looking for you, and that if I ever saw you again  _ anyway _ , I'd kill you myself." Kenji stabbed Justin in the stomach, and yanked the knife upward. "You had choices. You always had choices. And despite the many, many signs telling you which ones were the wrong ones..." Kenji shoved Justin over onto his side, and slashed his throat. "You kept making them."

Kenji stood back up, and set the knife down on the counter, before washing his hands in the sink.

"Every time I have ever shown you mercy was a mistake," Kenji said. "Every act of kindness,  _ wasted _ on you. I should've killed you the first moment I had the chance."

Justin simply gurgled wordlessly, rapidly bleeding to death in a bathtub.

"There will be no funeral for you. The closest you're going to get to a burial is when I finally am convinced that keeping your skull around is in poor taste." Kenji turned around, his hands bursting into flame to dry them. "Say goodnight."

"I'll..." Justin got out. "I'll see you... in  _ hell _ ... Teller Corcoran..."

"Your last words were a movie quote," Kenji said flatly. "If there was any doubt in my mind that this was the right thing to do, it's gone now." He sucked the air out of Justin's lungs through his nose, and let flames fill the vacuum. Glowing air entered his nose, and a few seconds later orange gouts of flame burst from his mouth. As the flame left his body, the light left his eye, and all the tension left his body, everything going limp.

There was silence for a moment as Kenji stared.

"Alright, well, that's been dealt with," Kenji said, turning and brushing past a stiff, wide-eyed Lisa on his way out of the bathroom. "I'll clean that up later. We still need to eat dinner."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The twist is that there is no twist. Kenji straight-up murdered his half-brother.  
> If you found the progression of this chapter compelling, I'd like to recommend you go read Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, which I only just now realized was something of an inspiration here.


	13. Chapter 13

"You alright?" Kenji asked, swallowing.

"How can you eat at a time like this?" Lisa asked, her bowl untouched. "God, I'm going to have  _ nightmares _ about that!"

"Yeah, welcome to the club," Kenji muttered darkly. "Would it make you feel better if I told you about the time that he, at the age of 18, attempted to kidnap a twelve year old?"

"No, no it wouldn't," Lisa said. "No amount of him deserving it is going to change the fact that you cut him up like an  _ animal _ , for... for no immediate reason. He wasn't a threat to you, he just wanted to talk, he... my god, Kenji, you killed your fucking  _ brother! _ How can you  _ live _ with yourself?"

"A bit easier now," Kenji said. "Lisa, allow me to tell you something. The specter of Justin coming back, of seeing him again, fucking haunted me for  _ years _ . When he first got busted out of a Birdcage transport- an incident that cost me several of my teeth, and forced me to wear partial dentures for three and a half years- I wasn't just angry, I was  _ terrified _ . He'd gotten to me once before. What'd stop him from doing it again? Especially since he knew to load for bear next time." He dug his chopsticks into the rice, then lifted a large lump into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. "So no, I didn't  _ have _ to kill him. But I will sleep  _ so _ much easier knowing that he's dead now."

"It's just... I..."

"I'm not in the mood to go into detail beyond that," Kenji said. "If you don't trust my word after this long living together, with  _ your _ power... well, that's more your fault than mine."

Lisa stared forlornly into her bowl, before sighing.

"Please don't," Kenji whispered.

"Teller Corcoran," Lisa said, looking up and meeting his blood red eyes. "My real name is Sarah Livsey."

"Don't, please."

"I had an older brother, too."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"It was my trigger event."

Kenji blinked a few times.

"Ah,  _ shit _ ."

"So you can hopefully see," Lisa said, "why I'm not exactly thrilled that you killed your older brother."

"I can, yes," Kenji said. "In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have made you watch that."

"In retrospect, you shouldn't have done that in the first place!" Lisa yelled. "My  _ god _ , you  _ killed _ your fucking  _ brother! _ What the  _ fuck _ is wrong with you?!"

"He  _ wasn't _ my brother, and any claim to the contrary is a willful delusion on his part," Kenji said. "He didn't grow up with me. We have no fond memories together. Is he my father's son? By blood, yes. But my father left his mother when he was three, so even  _ that _ isn't really a fair statement. That was his main neurosis, you know? He wanted so  _ desperately _ to be a part of a family that he didn't belong to and wouldn't take him. To call him my brother is to give a bit  _ too _ much respect to the dead. To me, he might as well be a stranger."

"Why  _ wouldn't _ your family take him?" Lisa asked.

"Well, at first, it was because he was a living reminder of my dad's ineptitude, as well as his relationship with another woman, and, y'know. Mom really didn't like that. Plus,  _ his _ mom wanted nothing to do with Dad, because Dad is at best a bumbling moron and at worst a terrible person.  _ Then _ , because he triggered, and immediately ran away from home to become a villain," Kenji said. "He's a liar, a thief, a cutter of purses and throats. You name it, he's probably guilty of it. If I'd told you all he's done, and he hadn't mentioned being my brother, you wouldn't be asking why I killed him, you'd be asking why I hadn't done it sooner. Or why he had come here."

"I... okay, I... can accept that, I just..." She sighed forlornly. "You killed your brother. There's... there's no taking that back. He's gone forever. You're... you're never getting him back."

"Do you think you're telling me something I don't already know?" Kenji asked. "I have personally killed twenty five people. I have watched fifteen more die from other causes. I  _ know _ how death works. I understand it intimately. I didn't kill him because I was mad at him, I killed him because  _ I wanted him to be dead _ . I  _ wanted _ him to be gone forever- I argued for sending him to the Birdcage because I wanted him gone forever. I shot him in the knees, cut out his eye, and left him in the forest because I wanted him gone forever. And clearly he  _ has _ to be gone forever if he's to be kept out of my life, because otherwise, the moment he thinks he can get away with it, he'll come slinking back in like a fox into a chicken coop. You may be thinking there had to be another way, but considering that putting him in jail didn't work, and simply crippling him  _ also _ didn't work... well, if there  _ was _ another way, I am  _ hardly _ equipped to see it."

"Really?" Lisa asked. "You really can't see the option of  _ talking _ to him, of attempting to communicate and reason with him as a fellow human being? Christ on a bike, have you  _ ever _ tried talking to him? Do you have anything in your conflict resolution toolbox that  _ isn't _ a fucking  _ gun? _ Or is talking out your differences  _ beneath _ you? Kenji,  _ surely _ you can see why I'm a little concerned about being anywhere near you considering our  _ last _ conversation was about you not caring about our friends at all. Hell, I'm half worried that you'll kill  _ me _ the moment I do anything even slightly shitty."

"...so, do you just not understand  _ why _ I killed him and why he's a unique case that we can't see ever again because I'm pretty much out of living grudges at this point?"

"I  _ understand _ why you killed him, I'm just... I'm worried. I'm worried, and I'm scared, because I suddenly have  _ really good reason _ to believe that you're completely incapable of forming actual emotional bonds with other people and are, in fact, a high-functioning psychopath I have somehow completely misread this entire time because people are fucking  _ complicated _ ."

"Mm, right, and  _ clearly _ my ability to kill people who I consider irredeemably evil has absolutely  _ nothing _ to do with my background as a  _ fucking superhero _ which you have known about for longer than you've known my fucking name," Kenji said flatly. "Look, I get it if you need some time to process this, I'm sorry for pushing. It's just... kind of frustrating, since this whole Nazi-hunting thing was  _ your _ idea, but it has been made readily apparent to me that you're not accustomed to the realities of watching a man die. That, if it turns out someone you  _ like _ was in fact a horrible person... you might discard your morals in favor of friendship." He shrugged, popping a fried stalk of broccoli into his mouth. "But, whatever. We can shelve this for a later time. It's... a complex, nuanced discussion, and I think we owe it to ourselves and each other to take our time with it. Also, I would like to eat my dinner without having to devote my attention to this fairly serious conversation."

"Yeah, that's... god, this is a mess."

\---

"...God, this is such horseshit," Vicky muttered. "The hell am I supposed to  _ do? _ "

"Buy a vibrator and move on with your life?" Amy suggested.

"Amy!"

"What?"

"Ugh." Vicky rolled onto her side, groaning. "Even if I thought that was a good idea, I kinda  _ can't _ right now. Right now, I'm responsible for raising two hundred and forty three dollars to pay for the window and my phone."

"Jesus, that much?"

"Glass is expensive, apparently."

"No kidding. Uh... hrm."

The two of them sat there in silence for a few minutes.

"...well, there's someone with a lot of money who is arguably responsible for this," Amy said.

"No."

"Mm."

Silence reigned for a while.

"Summer job?"

"Two hundred and forty three dollars isn't  _ that _ much money, if you have a job and nothing you need to spend money on."

"...Maybe don't ever say that around Dennis, Lisa, or Kenji unless you want to watch them spontaneously combust."

"Pft." Moments ticked by, before a lightbulb appeared over Vicky's head. "Hey. Speaking of Kenji..."

"Oh lord..."

"He's a professional artist who specializes in art depicting people, right?  _ Well _ , it  _ just so happens _ that, among my  _ many _ talents, is the ability to sit there and look pretty...and also float in midair. So..."

"So you've forgotten that his primary style is Eastern Expressionism and therefore a live model is largely worthless to him?"

"... _ fuck _ ," Vicky said softly, but with a lot of feeling. "You know, I thought being a superhero would come with more  _ dramatic _ struggles than this."

\---

"Oh jesus it clogged. Okay, important lesson: no you cannot just pour human ashes down the drain. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Get the plunger, I've learned my lesson about trying to use aerokinesis for this."

\---

"Yeah, well, that's life," Amy said with a shrug.

"Life sucks," Vicky muttered. "Whatever, between him and Lisa, they gotta have  _ some _ advice that'll help me. Or maybe I can convince him to branch out into Western Realism."

"Or maybe it turns out they  _ are _ villains, and you end up being seduced over to the dark side with promises of power, money, and not having to go to high school?" Amy suggested.

"Pft, yeah. I'll dye my hair and my costume black and start calling myself Gory Girl," Vicky said. "Join a crew of misfits with equally stupid names, like... I dunno, Tattletale, or something. Oh, and one guy with a mysterious past who turns out to be one of those villains we  _ think _ is dead but we've never found the body so we can't be sure. Like..." She got up, and floated over to her bookshelf, where she grabbed a spiral notebook with a black cover, and flipped through it. "Uh..." She reached into a jar and pulled out a pair of ten-sided dice, rolling them onto the open notebook. "...The Galveston Kid."

"That was  _ way _ too much effort for that joke," Amy said.

"Apparently The Galveston Kid was a human trafficker, and I'm  _ pretty sure _ my standards of who I'll work with aren't  _ ever _ gonna be  _ that _ low." She put the dice and the notebook back, and floated back to the bed. "Also, he disappeared right at exactly the same time he tried to kidnap a pyrokinetic, so it's pretty easy to imagine just  _ why _ we never found the body."

"How many pages are there in that 'never found the body' section?" Amy asked.

"Well, it's a  _ bit _ more complicated than that," Vicky said. "There's five pages of 'disappeared, circumstantial evidence suggests they're dead,' and there's eight pages of 'disappeared, no lead.' Christ, I need to digitize this so that I can alphabetize the list without it being a massive pain in the ass. But! I can do that later. First, I gotta make a phone call."

"Your phone is broken."

"...can I borrow yours?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Victoria does in fact have a spiral notebook filled with names of dead villains. In point of fact, she has an entire shelf's worth of collated and curated information pertaining to cape shit, a store of information that surpasses Lisa's database in breadth, depth, and usability.  
> However, it's more archival than anything, and just because it's more usable than Lisa's database doesn't mean it isn't a pain in the ass to look through and update.


	14. Model

"You're ridiculous," Lisa muttered, pouring herself a mug of coffee.

"No, I'm  _ promiscuous _ ," Kenji said, pointing at her with a fork. "There's a difference."

"You can be both," Lisa said. "I mean, really,  _ Dennis? _ "

"He's a good-looking guy," Kenji said. "Just the right kinda soft around the middle, too."

"Is he  _ aware _ that you're using him?"

"He's aware that I'm not really looking for romance, and he's got his heart set on Dean. Sometimes, a guy just wants some dick."

"Ugh." Lisa downed an entire mug of coffee, and sighed. "I swear, one of these days I'm going to have to watch half of the Brockton Bay Wards come out of your bedroom."

"Well, I mean, there's only like eight of them," Kenji said.

"Seven."

"Oh, well, that's actually better. So half that would be three or four, which is a lot, sure, but it's not an entire football team, either. And also it gives me a chance to weed out the lesbian, the twelve year old, and the obnoxiously straight white guy who Dennis clearly did not want at his birthday party but invited anyway because otherwise it would've been awkward."

Lisa sighed. "Kenji, you're my brother and I love you, but shit like this makes me question that."

"Considering what we were arguing over two days ago, I'll accept that."

\---

"Found anything?" Armsmaster asked.

"No, sir," Battery said. "We only have the one data point to work from.  _ Someone _ who can make fire and or explosions did this, but... that's about all we have to go on, and that fits pretty much anyone with a super soaker and a cigarette lighter."

"Mm," Armsmaster grunted. "...Give me your off-the-wall theories."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your conclusions you lept to, your half-baked theories, any and all horseshit you can spin up," Armsmaster said. "With parahuman business, four times out of five the truth is something you couldn't have reasonably predicted."

"Um, well... uh... I don't know, maybe Lung did it?" Battery said.

"That makes too much sense to be true," Armsmaster said. "And at the same time, not enough sense to be true. Lung would've killed Hookwolf openly, ensuring everyone knew it was him, and he likely would've caused more damage than that. Get weirder."

"Okay, uh..." Battery frowned, before picking up a folder and a twenty sided die, rolling one and opening the other. "...Powder faked his own death and he did it?"

"Mmm..." Armsmaster rubbed his whisker-laden chin, and pondered the possibility. "I can see it. Write that one down, and come up with a few others to go with it. Put it on my desk by the end of the day."

"Sir?"

"Pretend you're a hack writer working for the comic book companies," Armsmaster said as he walked off. "You need five ridiculous, attention-grabbing pitches by the end of the day."

"Sir, I-"

"We're literal superheroes, and the town's main villains are super-Nazis," Armsmaster called back over his shoulder. "This approach is as reasonable as anything else."

\---

"Alright, well, the memory card is full, so give me a moment to transfer all these to the computer," Kenji said quietly, taking the camera off the tripod.

"And just what do you intend to  _ do _ with all these photographs, again?" Mark asked.

"Dad, come on, relax," Vicky said. "I'm not even slightly undressed. It's all just headshots from different angles."

"Both of you be quiet, please," Kenji said, his voice still low. "My sister is trying to sleep. As for the photographs, Victoria still owns the copyright, and I am required to clear any and all dissemination of these photographs with her before I do so."

"Is that in writing anywhere?" Mark asked, his voice lowering.

"Yes, in point of fact, but you're going to have to wait for me to be bothered enough to go get it," Kenji said, grabbing a sketchbook and a pencil. "At the moment, I am going to use this time- which I am paying twenty five cents a minute for- to-"

"You're paying fifteen dollars an hour?"

"Dad, please," Vicky said. "Be chill for five minutes? Please?"

"Especially since you invited yourself into my home with no warning," Kenji muttered, starting to sketch Victoria from the shoulders up, blocking in the large shapes first. "Good lord, at least call ahead. You  _ know _ I'm paranoid about the safety of myself and my sister."

"I still think pulling a gun on me was uncalled for," Mark groused.

"And I think you being in my home is uncalled for, but we all have to make allowances for each other if we're going to work together, don't we?" Kenji said.

"I know how painters are," Mark said. "I used to be one, myself. I know what ends up happening most of the time, in situations like this one."

"I get that you're a middle class straight white dude, and that you have the unquestioned assumption that your experiences are the universal default, but the fact that you can't work from a live model without getting a boner is  _ your _ problem, not mine," Kenji said.

"Also, I'm being paid to be here and do this, and I'm pretty sure anything sexual would qualify as prostitution," Vicky said.

"That too," Kenji said. "Oh, and also you're... what, sixteen?"

"Seventeen in six weeks," Vicky said.

"Right, either way, most definitely a minor," Kenji said. "So anything involving you at some point that contained nudity would legally be child pornography, and quite frankly, even if the mere thought  _ didn't _ make me want to vomit, it'd still be  _ breathtakingly _ illegal, and I really don't want to go to jail!" He blinked, pausing in his drawing. "...Also, don't you have a boyfriend? I'm pretty sure that's something that got said around me at some point."

"Uh... funny story about that," Vicky said.

"Ah, I gotcha," Kenji said, resuming his drawing. "I'd offer a listening ear, but it's rather hard with, y'know. At any rate, we should  _ all  _ cut the chatter, because, as I would like to remind you all, my sister is trying to sleep."

\---

"Okay, so, we've opened with a gambit that'll make people think we're untrained," Kenji said. "Next step is to follow PRT standard procedure and shoot the Thinker first, because as you should be aware, a good Thinker is the difference between countless hours of legwork and a few cracked skulls and having an address and a name."

"Well, there's two Thinkers on this list," Lisa said. "Victor, who's a skill thief and probably the administrative, logistical lynchpin of the Empire, and a new guy called Thor, who shoots lightning and sees through- that's your brother, and you already killed him, nevermind."

"So if we kick Victor's teeth in, that'll weaken the Empire on the logistical front," Kenji said. "Remember, gangs are a business, and they need to make money. And if we take out management, then suddenly they're gonna be worse at making money, and that means they can't afford so many henchmen, both for salary and equipment. So they'll be weaker and easier to pick off... and this is why standard procedure dictates that you shoot the Thinker first." He clapped and rubbed his hands together. "So, do you know where he is, or are we gonna have to figure that out first?"

"The latter," Lisa said. "And that means we gotta hack a few Nazi computers, read some emails, and figure out where Victor might be."

"If he's the central administrator, we  _ could _ just walk into a bar, ask to talk to the boss and claim we wanna join the Empire, and then when we talk to the boss we kick his teeth in and make him tell us where  _ his _ boss is, and repeat until we get to Victor," Kenji said. "And behind us, we leave a trail of broken jaws."

"...That sounds a little unnecessary, and like it's got plenty of room for things to go wrong."

"Sure as hell faster than you doing the hacky thing, though."

"Again, we're not  _ really _ in a big hurry," Lisa said. "Plus, they're gonna be on-guard for people walking into bars and then doing horrible things to the people inside."

"On guard, sure. Able to defend against, not really. I  _ did _ , after all, kill Hookwolf. I really doubt they've got anyone who can stop me," Kenji said.

"Look, how's this," Lisa said. "I'll give you a list of addresses, and you can hit them as you see fit, and while you're doing legwork, I'll be here, doing the hacky thing. Can't believe I just said that."

"Alright, cool. I'll get another costume and some gear together."

"Another costume? I thought you'd settled on the Loki thing."

"Weeeell, this is for a different context, y'know? Plus, I'm playing around with it, having some fun. I think for  _ this _ one, I'll play Irish Mobster- walk in wearing a cheap suit, holding a cheap baseball bat, and swagger about like I own the place, then bust a few skulls and grandstand a bit." He grinned toothily. "It'll be real fun. Dunno about the accent, though. Should I or shouldn't I? Ah, what the hell, I'll do the accent. Only regret what you don't do, after all."

"You are having  _ way _ too much fun with this," Lisa said.

"Sure, sure," Kenji said, standing up. "But, well, there's just something... primally satisfying about the idea of hunting Victor. Y'know, the same primal urges that make you want to go up the stairs on all fours or eat detergent pods. A game of cat and mouse, with such a rich, lively environment to learn, to learn to strip back to its essential details." He breathed in deeply, before exhaling. "It's like big game hunting, except instead of endangered animals that mind their own business, I'm hunting white nationalists who are plenty capable of shooting back. Way more sporting  _ and _ indisputably deserving!"

"...I hate that I understand that completely," Lisa said.

"Yeah, being a hero puts some weird things in your thinkpan," Kenji said. "Honestly do not recommend it if you plan on living a nice, quiet life where nobody shoots at you. I got like five months of retirement before I got antsy and went back to work. On the plus side, now I know exactly why no cape has ever died of old age."

"What about-"

"We don't talk about him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "He" is, obviously, some cape who died from some sort of time-based effect, or perhaps a biokinetic telomere-erasing thing, or some other horseshit that could qualify as 'dying from old age.'


	15. Walk In The Park

 

Lisa wasn't paying overmuch attention to Dean and Kenji. She had her job, and she was going to do it, and despite her misgivings elsewhere, in the moment, she completely trusted Kenji to have her back, even with her disguise on(he had, after all, watched her put it on). There were bound to be a few marks worth hitting in the Marketplace, and fortunately for her, she didn't even need to use her power to spot them. They weren't called Skinheads for no reason, after all, and they had a habit of tattooing insignia on themselves in places that would be prominently displayed, especially in 85 degree weather.

She was a bit rusty, but she quickly got the hang of things once more, and after her third stolen phone, she was back to picking pockets like a master.

\---

"So how've you been holding up?" Kenji asked.

The trick to manipulating people- and de facto dictating where the physically meandering conversation meanders  _ to _ without anyone noticing definitely counts as such- is to keep them distracted so that they cannot use their full, formidable social-animal-brain to notice what you're doing and formulate a response.

In this case, Kenji was asking Dean how he was, in a way implying he might not be well, thus prompting Dean, whether he realized it or not, to think of the reasons  _ why _ he might not be well, less than a week after he broke up with his girlfriend.

"Oh, um." Dean coughed nervously. Kenji wasn't particularly experienced in the more mundane aspects of reading people- he could tell at a glance whether someone was frightened, enraged, and whether or not they noticed him, but he was forced to consciously reason out whether or not it looked like his gambit worked. "I'm. Doing fine." Of course, Dean's use of a contraction certainly helped speed along the reasoning. "How are you?"

"Oh, well enough," Kenji said. "You know, some of the other artists your father keeps on retainer have invited me to participate and contribute to a publishing endeavor of theirs. Supposedly, they aim to publish an anthology of stuff by Asian-American artists. Which brings me to an important question."

"Oh?"

"This is the east coast of North America. Geographically speaking, this location is the most inconvenient place in the world to get to from East Asia. Why, then, is a third of the city's population East Asian?"

"Well... it is something of a long story, although quite a lot of it is details. The short version is that the shipping industry up and left after a major industrial accident in the wharf rendered it completely unusable- it is now referred to colloquially as the Graveyard- and thus, to support the city, the tourism and tech industries had to step up. That led to the decision to try to turn Brockton Bay into a quintessentially West Coast city, and  _ that _ necessitated the immigration of one hundred thousand Asian-American citizens over a period of fifteen years.

"This was, of course, widely regarded as an absolutely terrible idea that would not actually solve any of the problems Brockton Bay faced, and in fact the population swelling by half over the course of a little over a decade created even more problems. However, they live here now, and everyone has more or less gotten used to it."

"Huh. You know," Kenji said, thinking about what he'd just heard, "just about every time I learn something new about this city, I find a new reason to hate it. And yet, at the same time, I would not be surprised if I ended up spending the rest of my life here."

"In the early days of the colonial era, between Jamestown and the revolution, this area was a haven for smugglers and pirates, due to the strait out there on the barrier island being too shallow for anything but small ships and barges to pass through." Dean pointed in the proper direction. "Captain Stewart, of the Royal Navy, was not made aware of this fact until after he had run his ship aground in the strait in pursuit of pirates."

"I can tell already that I'm going to hate this story," Kenji muttered.

"And so he ordered all of his men off the ship, in the same manner one might make everyone in a car get out so they can push it-"

"Oh it's already worse than I expected."

"-and fortunately, everyone was off the ship when an unattended cooking fire burned out of control and lit the mostly-full ammunition stores."

"Jesus christ."

"Fortunately, this had the effect of blasting quite a lot of stone out of the way, rendering the strait passable to the ship that had come to investigate and help. This ship was captained by one Captain Brockton, who was made aware of the smugglers in the town, and promptly hanged half the population and renamed the town after himself, which everyone went along with because he had a ship-of-the-line full of armed soldiers and nobody else had that."

"I refuse to look that up and risk learning that you're telling the truth, so instead I'm going to assume that you're a filthy, filthy liar and you've made that up to fuck with me."

"It is completely true, though."

"No it fucking isn't. For one, I know way more about explosions than I reasonably should, and gunpowder only works for moving earth if you've drilled holes into the rock and stuffed the gunpowder into the hole. Explosions aren't some magical  _ thing _ that disintegrate everything in a perfect sphere around them. They obey the laws of physics just like everything else."

"Ah, but surely the shock of the explosion would have disturbed all of the very wet sand the ship was on top of, causing it to essentially liquify."

"You said  _ stone _ , not sand. Do you need some time to get your story in order?" Kenji shook his head. "Second thought, don't bother. Moving on, did I ever tell you about where my name came from? It's kinda been on my mind, due to that anthology."

"No, I do not think you have," Dean said.

"Well, see, my mother, lord have mercy on her soul, was a first-generation immigrant," Kenji said. "And her father was  _ also _ named Kenji Takeuchi. They were from Hokkaido, which is the nothernmost of Japan's four major islands, and so Kenji really couldn't come to visit her in Texas, because Texas was just too goddamned hot. But, well, he did want to see his daughter again, so he attempted to acclimate himself to the heat by moving to Kyushu-"

"Oh no."

"He died  _ years _ before Kyushu sank underwater," Kenji said flatly. "Like. Dude. Kyushu has been a place where people live and die for thousands of years. That's  _ why _ the sinking of Kyushu is regarded as a great tragedy, and why the third generation of Pokemon games is regarded as ever so slightly morbid and wistful."

"...I beg your pardon?"

"Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald take place in a lightly fictionalized version of the island of Kyushu, which is where the series creator used to go on vacation as a child, and is full of vivid memories of catching bugs and clams and suchlike. The core Pokemon experience of exploring and discovering unfamiliar animals and attempting to catch them is based on his childhood hobby of collecting bugs, plus Gen 3 has been pretty well-received, so I figure it wasn't too terrible an idea."

"Is that what Pokemon is about?" Dean asked. "I am afraid I have never played it."

"...Dean, I was homeschooled, and didn't know how to use a computer until Lisa sat me down and made me learn," Kenji said. "How am I more pop-culturally aware than you are?"

"I, well, that, erm." Dean cleared his throat. "I say, I do believe it is going to rain later today."

"You're ridiculous," Kenji muttered, shaking his head. "Well, what  _ is _ the area of culture you're most familiar with? 20th century western literature? Because I may not know much about that, but I  _ do _ know that Ernest Hemingway wrote an account of that time F. Scott Fitzgerald was insecure and showed him his penis."

"We do not talk about that," Dean said pointedly.

"Oh, and Hemingway was obviously, uncomfortably attracted to Fitzgerald."

"...Pardon?"

"He describes Fitzgerald's appearance in complimentary terms and then caps that off with 'The mouth worried you until you knew him and then it worried you more.'"

"I. Well. That's."

"I'm just saying," Kenji said with a shrug. "Being attracted to men and not realizing that what you're feeling  _ is _ attraction isn't unprecedented. Especially if one happens to be properly homsexual rather than bisexual- you still feel differently about girls than you do about boys, just like everyone says you should. And while you  _ can _ sort through this with plenty of introspection and reflecting... it's often a lot easier to simply try it and see if you like it."

Dean short-circuited for a few moments, before opening his mouth. "Are... are you propositioning me?"

"That is exactly what I am doing."

"I. Um. Er." He coughed, and then cleared his throat. "...Erm..."

"It's a standing offer, if you need time to think," Kenji said. "Oh, hey, a hot dog stand. Let's grab something to eat."

\---

"Alright, well, I've got here twelve cell phones," Lisa said. "From the three I've gone through, I'm pretty sure I've got around two hundred or so phone numbers and sixty email addresses between them, along with a few physical addresses."

"Nice haul," Kenji said. "I got a date."

"You what now." Lisa looked up from the phones spread out across the table, blinking in confusion.

"Yeah, I told Dean about that Hemingway thing you told me about," Kenji said. "And then he-"

"You used  _ my _ knowledge of Ernest Hemingway to get laid?" Lisa asked, a little incredulous. "Jesus christ, can you please,  _ please _ control your penis for, like, ten minutes?"

"I am in perfect control of my penis," Kenji said primly. "It'd be difficult to get laid so often otherwise."

Lisa buried her head in her hands and groaned. "Please, just... I beg of you, stop making me aware of your sex life. Let me do the shadowy vigilante stuff without reminding me that you fuck."

"Listen, it just isn't proper heroism unless at least one person is getting laid uncomfortably often in a way that suggests that there might actually be something seriously wrong with them, mentally speaking, that ultimately stems from trauma and a damaged ability to relate to others."

"...You know what, I'm not even going to touch that right now. Hold yourself together for, like, two minutes while I go through all of these."

"That's fair."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean's story about how Brockton Bay came to be might be true. It depends on how seriously you feel like taking this.


	16. Blood On The Rocks

"Does Kenji just hate my dad _that much_?" Vicky asked as Lisa set up the white paper backdrop.

"Y'know how he used to be uncomfortable around you because you kinda look like his mom?" Lisa asked. "And how he got over that because you're not actually his mom, you're just a pale teenage girl?"

"So my dad _looks_ like his dad, and he hasn't gotten over that yet?"

"He probably _won't_ , considering that your dad is _not_ just a pale teenager," Lisa said. "Your dad is a pale grown-ass man who acts like a father."

"...Oh."

"And that is why I and I alone am in your house, taking these pictures."

\---

The thing Kenji had neglected to mention to Lisa was that quite a lot of hunting consisted of watching and waiting, observing the patterns of one's prey, and ultimately, understanding how one's prey stayed alive.

Organized crime was, ultimately, a business. The goal was to make money. And if there was anything Andrew Carnegie had to teach us, it was that controlling as many stages of production as you possibly could was a great idea. Expensive in terms of capital, but the Empire seemed to be doing quite well for itself, and could probably afford to have their own facilities for making liquor for their bars. It wasn't _that_ complicated, after all, and given that New Jersey wasn't called the Garden State for no reason, getting a hold of large quantities of grains wouldn't exactly be difficult, either.

To make sure that he wasn't chasing a red herring, he'd run this hypothesis by Lisa, and done a bit of investigation by way of asking people as they stumbled out of the bar what brands of liquor they stocked. He'd been told that it was all locally-made stuff, and Lisa confirmed that it was _probably_ moonshine(moonshine was, in fact, a legal distinction, not a type of drink; whatever it is you're brewing, it's called moonshine if you shouldn't be brewing it).

From there, he'd moved to observing the bars, and figured out when, exactly trucks would come by to restock them with booze. Then it was a matter of sticking a GPS tracker onto the truck, which was fairly easy to do from the roof of the bar itself- he simply tossed it like the world's most dispassionate Ultimate Frisbee player, and let the magnets do their work.

To prevent the magnets from sticking with an audible thump, he'd smeared a layer of putty onto the underside- it would absorb the impact, and then be gradually squeezed out of the way by the magnets for a more secure grip. And to disguise the trackers, and the batteries, and the rest of the electronics, Kenji had used Dean's 3D printer to fabricate a shallow pyramidal shell that would be impossible to see from the ground, and difficult to notice from any distance greater than two yards.

It was very fortunate for Kenji that he hadn't had to actually pay for the trackers. Roland had, during one of Dean's weekly guitar lessons, poked his head into the room and asked if either of the boys had any use for GPS chips, which he had just received in the mail after a drunken Amazon shopping binge.

Roland, when questioned, had explained it away as the reason why he didn't get on Dean's case _too_ terribly hard about fiscal responsibility, which had failed to address Kenji's question, but still provided material for an answer.

\---

"Alright, well, that's the quota for today," Lisa muttered. "Thank you for holding still like that."

"No sweat," Vicky said. "So, what now?"

"Now, we just hang out," Lisa said. "If you want."

"Of course I do, you're like my best friend," Vicky said.

"...wait, really?" Lisa asked.

"Well, yeah," Vicky said. "Partly because you like me for _me_ , not for Glory Girl, and partly because... I dunno, I just like you?"

"Maybe it's because you see me fairly often, and never in the context of high school, which I've been told is actually objectively terrible?" Lisa suggested.

"...yeah, that might be it," Vicky said. "It might be that I just hang out with you more than anyone who doesn't live in the same house as me."

Amy sneezed loudly in her room, directly next to Vicky's.

"...holy shit it actually worked," Vicky whispered. "Um. Anyway, so... what do you wanna talk about?"

"I'm curious- just what the hell is with all those spirals on your bookshelf?"

"Well, you see..."

\---

Kenji followed the truck back to the warehouse, glad he'd learned how to drive, and gladder still to have found out where the bar owner parked his car.

The warehouse itself was in a fairly run-down part of town, and blended in with its neighbors quite well. It certainly didn't scream 'this is a legitimate business' at the top of its lungs.

He'd parked the car somewhere it probably wouldn't get stolen over the course of maybe a half hour, about a block away, and walked the rest of the distance. He was wearing a disguise, not a costume- his face was covered in foundation and concealer meant for people who weren't albinos, and he had a smattering of fake freckles across the bridge of his nose and under his eyes. His clothing, meanwhile, was fairly reasonable- a suit with a bowtie and a raked hat, and the jacket replaced with a carefully tailored and altered trenchcoat from the army surplus store, giving him the appearance of a man from a hundred years ago.

Obviously, underneath the jacket was an arsenal of weaponry which was very illegal to carry on one's person in the state of New Jersey, but really, that wasn't too far off from some of the same men from a hundred years ago Kenji so resembled.

The warehouse, near as Kenji could tell, only had four doors: the front entrance, the back entrance, the truck bay door, and the roof access. He pulled out a hip flask, popped the cap, and took a quick swig, before re-capping it, putting it away, and getting to work on the doors on the the ground level.

Kenji's flame was an oxy-hydrogen flame, and while it did burn hot enough to melt steel, it often _wasn't_ used to melt steel due to the hydrogen making the steel brittle. However, Kenji was merely spot-welding some doors shut, and so a bit of brittleness could be tolerated as he quietly walked around the building, before starting to scale the fire escape, muffling his movement with aerokinesis.

He cut the fire escape behind him, rendering nothing but a pile of twisted scrap metal on the ground in the alley as he walked towards the roof access. He pulled out his revolver, and started cutting the lock out as soon as it was in range of his flame. He pulled the door open, closed it behind himself as he walked in, and welded the door shut behind him. Nobody was leaving without his say-so.

"Afternoon, fellers!" Kenji bellowed as he stomped into the warehouse, standing on the catwalk above the main floor. If there had been any doubt in his mind before now that this was where the Empire made their moonshine, it was banished from his mind by literally everything on the main floor, from the copper stills to the racks of barrels to the man at the table off in the corner who'd been tapping a barrel to fill glass bottles.

He'd started to spill the liquor. Good. Meant Kenji had his attention.

"Terribly sorry bout that door," Kenji continued, watching another man rush for the door and struggle in confusion. "Now, who's the feller what runs this operation?"

"That'd be me," Kenji heard from elsewhere on the catwalk. He turned to look, and sighed profoundly. "Gotta say, I thought you'd come in through the ground-level doors," Victor said from the overseer's office. He was out of range of Kenji's flame, unless he pulled some particularly destructive trick that would probably give away, to anyone watching, just who he really was. So that was out. "You're the guy who killed Hookwolf, I presume?"

"Yeah, I done killed Hookwolf," Kenji said, pointing his revolver at Victor. "N I'm here to kill you too, Victor."

"Hmph." Victor folded his arms. "Did you even bother to consider _why_ you're-"

"You are an openly genocidal bigot and a violent criminal who is actively worsening countless lives," Kenji said loudly. "I'll see you burn for all you've done, Victor."

"Will you?" Victor asked, before snapping his fingers. More lights came on, revealing about six men standing up in the rafters, pointing assault rifles at Kenji. Stormtiger and Cricket stepped out from the shadows, standing by Victor's sides. "I think these people have something to say about that."

"...Well, shit," Kenji muttered, squeezing the panic button sewn into the palm of his gloves.

\---

"-and then he said, 'I bet you're real confused, _JASON!_ '" Lisa said.

"God, I love John Mulaney," Vicky muttered. "Do you remember the-"

Lisa's phone blared an alarm, and her eyes went wide. She scrambled for her backpack, and started fishing around.

"Hey Vicky," Lisa said as she pulled out what appeared to be a jumpsuit. "You feel like helping me rescue my idiot brother from whatever horseshit he's gotten himself into?"

"Um..."

"Yes, we're capes, no, we're not villains," Lisa said, stuffing herself into the jumpsuit. "Vigilante heroes. He's looking into the Nazis right now."

"Oh _shit_."

"He's pretty good in a scrap, but he hit that button for a _reason_ , so..." She stuck a domino mask on her face, and then tossed Vicky a gas mask.

"What's this?" Vicky asked.

"Put that on, so people don't realize you're Glory Girl," Lisa said. "And this." She pulled a trenchcoat out of the bag, wincing a little at the idea of making her friend wear something like that.

"I never agreed to this," Vicky said.

"Do you or do you not want to punch Nazis and rescue my brother?"

"Yeah. Yeah I do."

"I already asked earlier, is the thing, so... you could've answered then."

"Listen... shut up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter title will also be an alcohol pun.


	17. Burden Of Proof

The first order of business, for Kenji, was not getting shot by the soldiers. The best way to avoid getting shot was to completely fuck everyone's aiming. And the best way to do  _ that _ , Kenji reckoned, was to use his flame's odd little side-effect:

"My eyes!"

Concentrated oxyhydrogen flames generated painful amounts of ultraviolet radiation. Ultraviolet radiation which, thanks to the Manton Effect, Kenji was immune to.

Kenji nailed a pair of soldiers with the revolver while everyone was yelling in pain, before he had to dodge, throwing himself to the side to avoid Cricket, who didn't need to see. Kenji fucked with the air around her, making her stumble about confusedly, before running up and delivering a flying kick to her head that knocked her off the catwalk and onto the main floor below.

"You're not worth the bullet, bug!" Kenji yelled after her.

Unfortunately, Stormtiger's mask seemed to include some degree of eye protection, and he recovered quickly enough to follow in Cricket's footsteps. Stormtiger was going to be... difficult. Kenji groaned on the inside as he wasted a bullet on pretending to not be a precognitive, and watched with both sights as the bullet curved past Stormtiger and went into the brick wall. Kenji tried a blast of more ordinary flame to obscure Stormtiger's vision, and continued running, spending the remaining three bullets on the remaining soldiers, who were just starting to recover, squinting down the sights of their rifles.

"So how'd you know I was coming?" Kenji asked as he hopped up onto the railing and flung himself through the air, boosted just barely enough by a blast of the strongest wind he could muster, and landing on the adjacent catwalk. He emptied the cylinder of his revolver, pocketing the spent shells, and reloaded with a speedloader.

"Murder's like potato chips," Victor said as he carefully picked up a shotgun and took a wide shot at Kenji. Kenji didn't have to do much, just lean to the side a few degrees. "You don't stop at one."

"That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever been forced to agree with," Kenji said, taking a shot at Victor to maintain his image. The bullet hit Victor's forehead and mushroomed out, before falling off, only managing to give Victor a solid thump. "Kevlar costume, huh?"

"You clearly understand why," Victor said, rubbing his forehead. "Nice trick with the bright lights. Shame it's not gonna save you once Cricket gets back up."

Stormtiger lept over, landing between Victor and Kenji, and roared not unlike Disney voice actor Frank Welker with a garbage can. Kenji slid one foot back, settling into a fighting stance.

\---

"Where is he?" Amy asked, driving the car.

"The docks," Lisa said, holding her phone carefully. "Abandoned warehouse area. He's got a GPS tracker, and I coded up a quick app on my phone for it. God bless Android."

"Yeah, but the camera looks like shit," Vicky said.

"People only say it looks like shit because Snapchat, on Android, just fucking takes a screenshot and sends  _ that _ . Anyway, that's not the point, shut up and also hold onto my phone."

Vicky took the phone, and Lisa reached into her bag, and pulled out what appeared to be the stock of a rifle. She popped the end off of the butt and stuck that into her bag, and began assembling the AR-7.

"So, um..." Vicky said.

"No, I've never killed anyone before," Lisa said. "But if push comes to shove, I'm not afraid to do it."

"Heroes don't kill people," Amy said.

"Whoever told you that is an idiot or a liar."

\---

Kenji used his back hand to draw the Masterkey, bringing his front foot back as he pointed it at Stormtiger and squeezed off a shot. "Let's see you redirect  _ this _ , dipshit!"

Stormtiger jumped about five feet into the air and blasted the pellets downward, into the catwalk. Kenji hated maintaining the ruse that he wasn't precognitive, but some trial and error was necessary.

"How many people have you killed in your stupid little crusade, huh?" Victor asked as Kenji began to trade blows with Stormtiger, flame and compressed air blowing each other all around, neither of them taking any substantial hits.

"Seven," Kenji said. "Gonna be at least ten before I'm done with you." Kenji needed some distance and time to think; to that end, he hit Stormtiger with a particularly large blast, aimed at the catwalk under his feet, and turned to run, one lie already coming to mind. "You made a very stupid mistake, Victor! You laid a trap for a pyrokinetic in a fucking  _ distillery! _ " He created a cone of vacuum, filled it with hydrogen, and then let it collapse into a directed blast of potent flame, much like he had when he fought Hookwolf.

This time, though, it grazed a still, which burst open where it'd been hit, and struck a wall rack loaded with wooden barrels soaked in flammable whiskey. A few of the workers down below were caught in the explosion, and some shrapnel dinged the underside of the overseer's office. Unfortunately, Kenji still didn't quite have a plan for dealing with Stormtiger that didn't involve getting too close. Maybe Amy would take pity on him...

"Acceptable losses," Victor yelled back, taking another shot at Kenji with the shotgun. This time, his aim was true, and Kenji had to throw up another flare of bright oxyhydrogen flame, flash-boiling the lead pellets out of the air. "Wh- No! Fuck you!  _ How?! _ "

"Fire beats everything!" Kenji declared triumphantly, dashing forward to meet Stormtiger in close quarters combat. His feet were a bit singed, but that mostly just made him even more pissed.

\---

"Found 'im," Vicky said. Vicky had parked the car on top of a nearby building, and was carrying Lisa carefully. "We're going in hot so, get ready to fight."

"I'm ready," Lisa said, holding the AR-7 close, as Vicky turned around and flew back-first through a brick wall.

\---

Kenji didn't have much trouble feigning surprise as Victoria Fucking Dallon In A Trenchcoat smashed through the brick wall and body-slammed Stormtiger off the catwalk and onto the factory floor below.

"Oh, by the way Victor, I sure hope you didn't think I was working alone," Kenji said. He'd thought backup would only show up in time to give him a ride home and maybe patch him up.

"...Fuck this noise," Victor said as he ran out of the office, for the rooftop exit.

"Catch," Kenji called to Lisa, tossing her the Masterkey before casually sauntering off to get Victor. "Cricket's around here somewhere; look out for her. I've got a score to settle."

\---

"You know dual-wielding's a stupid idea, right?" Vicky said, ducking to the side to avoid one of Stormtiger's air spikes, and darting in to slug him in the stomach, flinging him backwards.

"You know putting a gun on the ground where I can step on it is  _ also _ a stupid idea, right?" Lisa replied, her head on a swivel as she kept her eyes peeled for Cricket.

Lisa thanked her power as it warned her of Cricket coming from above, and squeezed off a panicked shot with the Masterkey. It wasn't the most accurate, but with buckshot and a distance of two yards, actually missing wasn't in the equation, and Cricket stumbled in her jump, falling off the edge of the truck and landing on the ground, where Lisa shot her again a few more times in a panic, this time in the arms and one leg.

"Incoming!"

Lisa picked up Vicky's meaning and ducked, rolling backwards, just in time for Stormtiger to hit the side of the truck and slump to the floor, groaning in pain. Lisa shot him in the knee as well, making him scream.

"He was already down!" Vicky yelled.

"And now he'll  _ stay _ down," Lisa said, tossing the now-empty Masterkey away.

\---

"So where's Othala?" Kenji asked as he stepped into the bottom of the stairwell. Victor was struggling with the door, which had been thoroughly welded to the frame. "With her here, you might've stood a chance." He took another swig from his hip flask.

"She's at home," Victor growled, turning around and pointing the shotgun at Kenji. "Don't worry about her. Worry about  _ me! _ "

Kenji, looking extremely unimpressed, scorched the backs of Victor's hands, causing the tendons to seize up and contract, and making his fingers extend straight out, some even bending back a bit. The shotgun dropped from his hands, and slid down the stairs towards Kenji. He took a careful, casual sip from his flask as he watched.

"Why should I?" Kenji asked. "You can't even hold a gun."

"You fucking-"

Kenji ripped the air away from Victor's mouth and nose, drawing out the air inside of him, and let him struggle to support himself on the handrail.

"You're done talking," Kenji said flatly. "There will be no allowance for pithy last words. There will be no chance to spit in my eye."

Victor tried to flip Kenji off, but found himself still unable to move his fingers, and lost consciousness shortly thereafter. And with that, Kenji went to work.

\---

"Okay... okay, they're, they're down," Vicky said, eyes wide open. "...Holy shit. Okay, uh... where is Kenji?"

Victor screamed as he fell from the catwalk, and then stopped screaming at the same time his body stopped falling, his feet about four feet off the ground.

"I got him," Kenji said, stepping into view as Victor finished his gallows jig. "Thank you two for showing up. Really saved my ass."

"No problem," Vicky said. "You okay?"

"Who, me? I'm fine," Kenji said. "A little out of breath, but nothin' that won't go away on its own in a few minutes. How're you two holdin' up?"

"Lisa killed some people," Vicky said.

"They're still breathing," Lisa said, folding her arms.

A pair of gunshots rang out, and Kenji put his revolver away. "No they're not."

"Jesus  _ christ _ , man!" Vicky yelled.

"No survivors," Kenji said, picking up a spent shotgun shell before hopping down from the catwalks and cushioning his landing with an explosion. "The point is to make absolutely sure they can't hurt anyone ever again. So unless you feel like amputating their limbs, pulling their teeth, and cutting out their tongues, then I'm going to say that this is the best way to accomplish that. Alright, Lisa, gather up your spent shells. You don't wanna leave those lying around, trust me on this."

"Now hang on just a moment, mister," Vicky said. "I think you owe me a  _ bit _ of an explanation, considering I just saved your ass."

"Now's actually when we should be running away before the cops show up, but I'll answer questions in the car," Kenji said. "C'mon."

"We're not going  _ anywhere _ until you answer me,  _ Red Wind _ ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like writing action scenes.


	18. Blackmail Material

"Hey Mom, guess what we fou- Amy, where are you going?"

"This has nothing to do with me," Amy said as she trudged up the stairs.

"...okay then," Vicky muttered, leading Kenji and Lisa into the dining room, where Carol was reading the newspaper. "Anyway, guess what  _ I _ found!"

"...An Italian mobster and your friend Lisa?" Carol asked.

Kenji sighed, taking his hat and sunglasses off, before "wiping"(read: discreetly burning) the makeup off of his face.

"Oh. Hello there, Kenji. Your disguise worked, I suppose," Carol said. "...Why were you wearing one?"

"Don't worry about it," Kenji said, reaching into a coat pocket and pulling out a tape recorder and a piece of paper folded into something approximating an envelope. "This is the explanation of what, precisely, your daughter found."

"Is this going to take long?" Carol asked, opening up the letter. "I've had a long day at work, and-" She blinked a few times. "...Victoria, go make a pot of coffee."

"Here, drink this," Kenji said, passing her his hip flask. "It's cold-brew coffee."

"Thank you," Carol muttered, before draining the flask. She set the letter and the flask aside, and then pressed play on the tape player.

_ "My name is Victoria Dallon. I'm interviewing Kenji Takeuchi. With me are my sister, Amy Dallon, and his sister, Lisa Wilbourne. Let's begin. Kenji, are you a parahuman?" _

_ "Yes, yes I am." _

_ "Are you, in fact, the parahuman formerly known as Red Wind, formerly a member of the Houston Wards?" _

_ "Yes, yes, you've proved that already. It's a shame I am apparently the only person to actually  _ use _ a Colt Python, they're fairly good guns." _

Carol looked at Kenji again, who grinned and waved lazily.

_ "Can you explain just why, exactly, you're in Brockton Bay, using what is presumably a fake name, instead of in Houston?" _

_ "Oh, well, that's simple. First and foremost, my name as given at birth is Teller Corcoran. I prefer Kenji Takeuchi, which was the name of my maternal grandfather, but most people who know me from Houston know me as Teller Corcoran. Second, actually answering the question that was asked... My parents, Powder and Blizzard, Maxwell and Akitsu Corcoran, are-  _ were _ , excuse me, abusive. They had an obsession with the idea of breeding a generation of powerful heroes- essentially, a super-soldier program stolen straight from comic books but made a little bit creepier. I was their prototype. And given that the evidence and their observations pointed them at superpowers coming from trauma..." _

There were a few moments of silence, as Carol looked up at Kenji once more, and he nodded silently.

_ "...my childhood was not exactly a pleasant one, you understand. Due to complications in my birth, my mother was unable to have any children aside from me. I think that things might've been better for me, if I hadn't been an only child. They would've been focusing more on quantity than quality- sure, I probably still wouldn't have had a particularly great childhood, but there would be far less of my parents intentionally attempting to traumatize me in hopes of provoking a particular power. In the end, though, what finally made me trigger was mere negligence on their part- they left me alone for what was supposed to be a week, and on day three, I'd run out of food that didn't need to be cooked. Being barely a month over ten years old at the time, I naturally fucked it up badly enough to cause a grease fire, then a grease explosion, burning my face and also giving me my powers." _

Carol hit the pause button. "Is any of this  _ true? _ " she asked.

"I don't bother lying to people," Kenji said. "It's never worked out for me. Keep playing, there's more."

_ "Is there any particular reason that, after all this time, I'm only just now hearing about this? Powder and Blizzard are a big deal, or at least, they're a stone's throw from a very big deal." _

_ "Well, it's  _ because _ they're a big deal. You can't just let it be known that Eidolon's best friends and the longest-serving heroes in Houston are, in fact, deliberately abusive parents. When I tried to tell someone,  _ multiple _ someones in fact, they always ended up killed in action a few days later. Sometimes even the same day! So, I gave up on that, and began plotting an escape strategy." _

_ "How long did your planning take?" _

_ "Several years. I accumulated money, some of which I will admit was obtained through illegitimate means such as armed robbery and embezzlement. I did research on surviving in the wilderness, and obtained materials and tools that would be difficult to obtain after I abandoned my old life. This included a frankly unreasonable amount of ammunition, and also a  _ lot _ of stolen PRT documentation. My plan had been to go to Philadelphia, hide for a few months, and either throw myself on Chevalier's hospitality and mercy if it turned out I had a good read on him, or move on to New York and try Legend, who was closely tied to Eidolon, but also perhaps more  _ moral _ than Eidolon, and certainly able to stand up to him." _

_ "You're about sixty miles from Philly, Kenji. You have been for, like. This entire year so far." _

_ "Yeah, I fell asleep on the bus ride over and woke up at the end of the line in Brockton Bay. I planned on staying a day at the most, to get my bearings, maybe arrange a trip to Philadelphia, but then... then I ran into Lisa, and slowly came to the conclusion that my Philadelphia plan could go hang. All the cape business could hang. I was reminded that I could very much have a life that didn't involve cape horseshit. Suddenly, I didn't care about being Red Wind out from under the thumb of Powder and Blizzard. I could just be Kenji Takeuchi, protective brother, up-and-coming artist. Another artist under Roland Stansfield's umbrella, another of Glory Girl's quirky friends." _

_ "Alright, so... last question. Explain to me what happened that night of January the Seventh, when you disappeared and your parents died." _

_ "Well, that's when my mother's birthday is. She and my father got drunk in celebration, and I ensured I would be out of the house on Ward business that evening. I came home at ten PM to find them asleep in their room. I checked my preparations, packed my bag, and then I walked into their room with a kitchen knife, and I cut open their throats. Then I left." _

_ "You... you killed your parents?" _

_ "They deliberately attempted to traumatize me on multiple occasions, as well as psychologically condition me to be the ideal fighter. Besides, I had to make sure they couldn't come looking for me. So yes, I killed them, and my only regret is that I wasn't powerful enough to do it while they were awake. You don't look to be in any condition to continue the interview, so I'll answer the last question you didn't ask, and we'll be done. I'm still hiding from Eidolon. I  _ can _ hide from Eidolon because his power doesn't actually have any powers that aren't directly combat-applicable- no Tinker powers, no long-term or long-range Thinker powers either. I  _ do _ believe that if he does find me, he will murder me without any due process. Hence this recording- he may be able to disappear me, but I do believe that it would be exceedingly difficult for him to disappear New Wave, and the newspapers, and everything else." _

The tape then went silent; the recording was over.

"So," Kenji said. "An actual, literal conspiracy in the government with corruption, innocents getting hurt, and a sympathetic figure at the core of it all- a lonely child who's been kidnapped multiple times and forced into the hero business, who immediately left it behind the first chance he got to become an artist." He cracked a grin. "How does  _ that  _ grab your attention?"

"Like a hydraulic press," Carol muttered. "Christ on a bike, this is... this is  _ huge _ , if it's true."

"It perfectly explains every aspect of a complex situation in a way that hardly anything else does," Kenji said. "If I'm lying about this, then I killed my parents for no goddamn reason, and that's not a thing that people do."

"Hey, you mind if I help myself to a can of soda?" Lisa asked.

"I- hm? Oh. Yes, go on ahead," Carol said. "Do you two have  _ any _ adult guardians?"

"Nnnnope," Kenji said. "Most of my prep work was getting myself past the point of being terrified of having to support myself. Didn't exactly go well first time, y'know. But, well, I've been-  _ we've _ been, surviving these past six months, so... Clearly, we ain't doin'  _ that _ bad."

"That's a hideous oversimplification and you know it," Lisa said, popping open a can of sprite.

"So there've been some stumbling blocks," Kenji said. "We're still alive, and haven't had to call the fire department even once."

"Yeah, because Mr. Pyrokinetic can just turn off fires whenever he pleases," Lisa said.

"Wait. Hold on," Carol said. "You said your father's name was Maxwell Corcoran?"

"Eyup," Kenji said.

"I recognize that name. Give me a moment." Carol got up, and walked out of the kitchen, heading into the basement. She came up a minute later, holding a cardboard box about the length and height of a loaf of bread, and twice the width. "I received this package from him in the mail while I was pregnant with Victoria. I never opened it, because I had no earthly clue who he was, but..."

"It's not a trap," Kenji said. "Maxwell was obsessed with the idea of second-generation parahumans. It most likely  _ is _ in fact a gift." He cleared his throat. "Mind you, I can't promise that you'll  _ like _ whatever's inside, because Maxwell Corcoran is a fucking insane person with terrible and wrong ideas of what constitutes proper child-rearing, but it's not a bomb."

"Alright, well... Victoria, this  _ is _ ultimately yours, so... you do the honors of opening it," Carol said, handing Victoria the box and stepping back.

"Left unsaid is that you're the only one who'll survive opening it if it  _ is _ a bomb," Lisa said.

"It's..." Victoria frowned as she tore the cardboard open. "...Kenji, your father mailed me a gun."

"He  _ what?! _ " Carol asked.

"It is... a Glock 19 pistol," Victoria continued. "Semi-automatic, chambered for 9mm."

"Yeah, he did that a lot," Kenji said. "You're seventeen, so you were early on, when he still sent out quality guns that were built to last. By the time he died, he was just mailing out saturday night specials. And yes, he did this for every superhero in America who had a baby. Every single one of them."

"Why the  _ hell _ would he mail out  _ guns? _ " Carol asked.

"Oh, like you can't think of a single use a superhero would have for a gun," Lisa said. "Hell, I bet Kenji's revolver was a baby shower gift."

"He didn't  _ just _ mail out guns," Kenji said. "Vicky, tell us what else is in the package."

"It looks like... uh... two hundred bullets," Vicky said.

"Oh, brilliant, the psychopath didn't leave anything out," Carol muttered. "Why did nobody stop him?"

"You just listened to a comprehensive explanation of why nobody stopped him," Kenji said. "Look, ignore the gun, the gun doesn't matter. Are you or are you not in my corner?"

Carol sighed, eyeing the empty flask. "...Yes. Yes I am."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, there was going to be a bit with Kenji claiming to instead be The Galveston Kid, and then Vicky would point out that twelve year old Kenji just murdered the Kid and destroyed his body for the sake of plausible deniability and identity theft.  
> That's still as canon to Vagrant as anything that isn't actually in the story can be- Kenji really is that kind of guy- but it didn't come up in this chapter and I'm not sure if it'll come up later.


	19. Rainfall

"Thanks for not asking about what I've been doing lately," Kenji said, flopping onto his back as the three of them settled down in Vicky's room. "Explaining  _ that _ mess while throwing myself on your mother's mercy would've been... tricky."

"While I don't have the stomach for it myself, I'm not exactly a Nazi sympathizer, either," Vicky said. "I mean, the Red Army's what stopped the Holocaust. The White Rose just got themselves killed in the span of six months."

"White Rose?" Kenji asked.

"A German anti-fascist organization that distributed pamphlets," Vicky said. "Like I said, they all got killed about six months after they started."

"Doesn't sound like they accomplished much," Lisa said. "Why do we remember them?"

"I'm not really sure, but they had a cool name that lent itself well to iconography, so..." Vicky shrugged helplessly. "I will say, though, that when the Hookwolf thing happened, one of the more convincing tinfoil theories was that Red Wind did it."

"Mm," Lisa muttered. "Hey, Kenji, d'you think Eidolon would kill me too, if you were found out?"

"I think I get the point," Kenji said. "No more arson."

"Yeah, it's not exactly subtle," Vicky said. "Plus, this new one... that's gonna be  _ real  _ hard to explain, considering there's only really two pyros in town, and one of them is a small-time thief called Circus."

"The other one would be Lung, I take it?" Kenji asked. "He hasn't been knocked over in the time since I last bothered to check?"

"I don't think we can pin this on Lung, is the thing," Vicky said. "This isn't his MO."

"Well, let's see if he's recruited anyone recently," Kenji said. "I haven't been keeping my ear to the ground- that's Lisa's job. She's the high-level strategic Thinker, I'm just a combat Thinker with a decade of paramilitary training."

"Hey, I've been studying the Empire," Lisa said.

"He recruited Oni Lee back in early June, when I was studying for finals," Vicky said. "So you think we can spin a narrative about how Oni Lee changed his MO?"

"Probably, yeah," Kenji said. "Also, I've said this before, but they really are running out of good names, aren't they?"

"Okay, we get it, Red Wind, not everyone has the good fortune to have a name like yours," Vicky said. "Anyway, Oni Lee dresses like a ninja and teleports grenades all over the place."

"Oh, we can  _ definitely _ pin this on them," Kenji said. "We just need to kick their asses in a more conventional superhero way, and then when there stops being burned-out buildings full of dead Nazis, people will think that Lee and Lung did it."

"There's a problem with that," Vicky said. "You seem to think we can take on Lung."

"Oh, we  _ definitely _ can. He's intimidating, but  _ nobody _ is untouchable. Not even the Dragon of Kyushu. So, what we need to do is..."

\---

"So, what's your reason?" Battery asked.

"Pardon?" Solar blinked, looking up from her paperwork.

"For... this. All of the volunteering for extra hours," Battery said. "It's not that I  _ disapprove _ , I'm just curious, and I want to get to know you better."

"I'm a hero," Solar said. "Heroism, whatever form that takes... that's my life's work. I dunno how long my life is gonna  _ be _ , but I  _ do _ know that I want to spend as much of it as I can doing good things. And if that means I gotta push pencils, then I'll push pencils."

"Well, that's certainly noble of you," Battery said. "Did anything in particular inspire this, or are you just naturally like that?"

"My dad's a trauma surgeon," Solar said. "Long hours, hard work, but he's saved more lives than he can count. And I always looked up to him, always wanted to be like him. And now... now I can be." She cleared her throat. "Um. I don't want to talk about it much more, it's. A sore subject."

"I understand," Battery said, nodding.

"...and, I'll admit, a little bit of it is me trying to outdo Corky," Solar said. "God, that lazy prick wouldn't even call the fire department if his own house was on fire. Thinks he's too good to patrol or stop muggings. Always had some remark about how that wasn't his job, as though it wasn't actually, literally, his job, the thing he was being paid to do."

"Doesn't sound like you had to do  _ much _ to outdo him," Battery said.

"Oh, but I just  _ couldn't _ ," Solar groused. "He was Houston's golden boy, and I was just some girl. Fuck 'im, I'm  _ glad _ he's gone."

"Do you have any idea where he might  _ be? _ "

"Pft, probably chatting up a pretty blonde or two," Solar said dismissively.

\---

"Good fucking lord, is  _ that _ what it looks like when an aerokinetic sneezes?"

\---

"With or without drugs involved," Solar continued. "Look, give up. We're not getting him back. He's just gone. I've known him for three very unfortunate years. He wouldn't come back for love or for money."

"If you're certain..." Battery said. "...so, how are the other Wards-"

"Battery, I dunno if you know this, but I don't actually want to have this conversation with you."

"...sorry."

\---

"So, Shoutstop, how's everyone been holding up?" Battery asked.

"Vista's in a mood, Kid Win is currently in the infirmary with some nasty burns from his soldering iron, Aegis is  _ also _ in the infirmary with a golf ball stuck in his eye that he refuses to explain, Solar is... Solar... Shadow Stalker is an edgy teenager who needs a solid thump to the head, and Clockblocker and Gallant are apparently gay and dating," Triumph said. "And apparently they got together because of some bisexual pretty-boy guitarist they met back in January."

"...well, at least you're not bored?" Battery offered.

"Never a dull moment in this business," Triumph muttered. "Fuck, I'm stuck with this for nine months. I miss the days when keeping track of all this was someone else's problem."

"Consider it a rite of passage," Battery said. "I had to go through it, too,  _ and _ I was chasing after Madcap."

"And now he's chasing after you," Triumph said. "Honestly don't know what you see in him."

"I've told you time and again you're not welcome in my love life, Shouty," Battery said defensively.

"Yeah, yeah," Triumph said. "Still, not a great look."

"Moving on, what's Vista upset about, can you tell?" Battery asked.

"Well, learning that the boy she's got a crush on is single and then learning that he's no longer single and also discovered that he's gay  _ probably _ isn't doing any favors," Triumph said.

"There's more to a girl's life than romance. Any other ideas?" Battery asked.

"I dunno, maybe her parents are fighting again or something? It isn't exactly  _ wise _ to ask questions when she's mad like that," Triumph said. "She's pretty scary when she wants to be."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I was talking to a seventeen year old athlete with superpowers," Battery said flatly.

"I'm not falling for that one again," Triumph said. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice-"

"That has worked five times, and that's  _ just _ the times I tried it."

"Listen. Shut up."

\---

"Okay, I can see that working," Vicky said. "Yeah, I definitely like that plan. And after that?"

"Well, by then Kenji will be done digitizing your little library here, and feed a copy into my database," Lisa said. "Then you can truthfully claim that it's your research that's led you to all the information you have on the Nazis, and  _ then _ you can be Saint Victoria who drove all the Nazis out of New Jersey."

"And it  _ will _ be you," Kenji said. "It's on you. If you want help, you'll have to recruit it yourself. I'm out of the picture at this point."

"Right, right, can't risk exposure anymore than you already have," Vicky said, nodding. "I can manage that, don't worry."

"...anyway," Kenji muttered. "Let's see, what else... I think that's everything, in broad strokes at least."

"We should hash out the finer details some other time," Vicky said. "Plus, I kinda wanna pick your brain about a few things. When are you free?"

"Well, let's see... I'm teaching painting classes in the morning on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,  _ and _ I've got a painting class to teach on Saturday in the afternoon... actually, here." Kenji pulled out a pocket notebook, and flipped the page until he found what appeared to be a weekly schedule. He passed the notebook to Victoria, along with a pencil. "Write in a good time."

"Alright, cool," Vicky said. "How does coffee sound?"

"Sounds good to me," Kenji said with a shrug.

"Great, I know a place on the Boardwalk. My treat, don't worry." She finished scribbling, and handed the notebook back. "So, what's next?"

"We should be headin' out," Lisa said. "Been a  _ long _ day, and  _ someone _ has work in the morning."

"Alright, see ya!"

Lisa grabbed her backpack, which she'd packed up earlier, and left with her brother in tow.

"...That went better than I thought it would," Kenji said as they walked to the bus stop.

"Yeah, you even got a date out of it. Again," Lisa said.

"I did?" Kenji asked. "...Oh shit, I did. Huh."

They kept walking in silence for a few moments.

"Yeah, I can live with that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triumph used to play baseball. "Shortstop" is a defensive position in baseball, and his power is shouting. Hence "Shoutstop."  
> It's a stupid nickname, but it's better than Corky.


	20. First Dates

"So, about that whole  _ armed robbery _ thing..." Vicky said. She'd done her research, and knew that Kenji could put up a bubble of silence around them.  _ Before _ anyone overheard anything incriminating, even. "Can you, uh,  _ elaborate _ on that?" He'd gotten a hot chocolate, which he'd been drinking as though it were room-temperature water that cost a buck fifty per fluid ounce as they walked along the fairly crowded Boardwalk.

"It was done to criminals," Kenji said. "As it turns out, Houston still has crime problems even though Eidolon is there because superheroes don't actually have a very significant effect on crime levels because superheroes do not address the actual fundamental causes of crime. Also, Houston is Eidolon's  _ home _ , not his haunt- by which I mean, he almost never  _ works _ there, it's just a place where he hangs his hat. So, it's up to everyone else to keep the villains under control. And, well, I dunno if you quite understand this, but Houston is fucking  _ huge _ . Fourth biggest city in America, with a population of two million. Compared to that, Brockton Bay's a podunk backwater."

"Are you making a point, or are you just dunking on New Jersey?" Vicky asked.

"A little of both," Kenji admitted. "My point is, there's a  _ lot _ of room in Houston for villains, and a lot of them are shitty in ways  _ other _ than merely turning to crime to stay alive. It's the ones who do the real shitty stuff who I tracked down, beat up, and robbed."

"...so you stole from villains."

"Yes, with the help of a baseball bat and a gun. Which makes it armed robbery."

"It's just. When you said 'armed robbery,' I was thinking that it'd be way,  _ way _ worse than that," Vicky said. "I thought, like, you'd at one point gone full villain."

"I mean, technically I did?" Kenji said. "I committed illegal acts for material gain. It's just that I was also a government employee at the time. My turn- if you thought I'd gone full villain, why the hell did you  _ propose _ this? It'd be another thing if you'd simply agreed to it, but no, this was entirely your idea."

"Well, it's complicated, and incidentally if you make a bad boy joke you're going to lose more teeth," Vicky said. "It's more... Well, given your situation, I was willing to forgive a few things, you know?"

"Mm," Kenji muttered. "The topic of forgiveness is a tricky one that, in my case, is a veritable minefield. So I propose we sidestep that discussion entirely for now."

"Probably for the best," Vicky said. "Okay, so... Solar."

"What about her?" Kenji asked. "I know she's here. She doesn't know I'm here."

" _ How _ , you two were in the same room at the same time and I talked about you to her," Vicky said exasperatedly, before taking a long pull from her iced coffee.

"Remember how Amy took that big, nasty burn scar off my face?" Kenji asked. "And regrew my teeth? I know you're not fully aware of how I looked  _ before _ , due to the fact that I used to wear a lot of concealer, but Solar doesn't know what I look like without that scar."

"Alright, fair dues," Vicky said.

"Plus, Solar and I ain't really close anymore," Kenji said. "Well, I mean. We haven't talked in like six months, but  _ before _ then, we kinda drifted apart as she slowly realized that our friendship was unfulfilling and also she didn't enjoy my company."

"Oh. Shit, that's the  _ worst _ ."

"Meh," Kenji said with a shrug. "Sure, it's sad to lose friends, but I'm just glad I didn't lose her to a pine box and six feet of dirt."

Victoria winced. "Mm."

"Yeah, there's a  _ lot _ of damn good reasons why I'm done with cape shit," Kenji said. "Lemme know when you give up on beating up pickpockets and trying to convince yourself that this really is the right thing to do, I'll hook you up with a career counselor."

"There's more to being a hero than beating up pickpockets," Vicky said indignantly.

"Oh, sure, there's all that pageantry with costumes and masks," Kenji said. "Plus official ceremonies and galas and functions, and charity stuff. But the core day-to-day of superheroing is fighting crime, and more often than not, that means beating up pickpockets, or drug dealers, or sometimes prostitutes. Or, alternatively, just flying around and being a deterrent, but that's more pageantry."

"...Damn, you're so jaded I'm surprised your eyes haven't turned green," Vicky said.

"I'm traumatized, not jaded, but sure, dodge the underlying issue with our modern paradigm of superheroics," Kenji said. "You can't run from it forever, though. I won't  _ let _ you."

"That's fucking ominous as shit," Vicky said. "Also, if you're gonna meddle in cape stuff from the sidelines, you might as well take another stab at helping me with my gimmick, and this time not suggest things that will make my parents think I'm some sort of BDSM freak. Fucking lasso, imitating Wonder Woman. You knew  _ exactly _ what you were doing, you ass."

"First and foremost, that was funny as hell," Kenji said. "Second, now that I can speak from experience without giving myself away: you don't  _ need _ a gimmick. You don't become well-known by having an interesting gimmick, you become well-known by  _ doing things worth knowing about. _ You don't know who Eidolon is because he has a gimmick, you know about him because he's kicked more ass than any hero  _ not _ named Alexandria or Legend. Hell, you even knew who  _ I _ was before I introduced myself, all because I've killed a lot of people. Meanwhile, you... well, you feel the need for a  _ gimmick _ .  _ Fuck _ the gimmick, just go out and kick some ass.  _ That _ is how you make a name for yourself in this business."

"Wait, what about Scion?" Vicky asked. "Isn't he the one who usually ends up driving off Endbringers?"

"Scion... doesn't count," Kenji said, before coughing. "...Although he's  _ also _ a good example of how you make a name for yourself- it really  _ isn't _ about gimmickry, it's about doing things worth knowing about. Scion is famous for being the first manifestation of parahumanity, as well as being incredibly powerful and also of debatable humanity."

"I see, I see... So, are you my mentor now?" Vicky asked.

"Absolutely not," Kenji said, shaking his head. "Nope, nope, I am  _ not _ putting myself in a position of authority over you, fuck that noise. That's a recipe for disaster."

"Right, right, obviously," Vicky said hastily. "...although, um-"

"Nope, we're not having that discussion on the first date. Keep that shit to yourself for another few weeks. Moving on, what're you keeping busy with this summer?"

"Well..."

\---

"It's my dad," Dennis said, his grip on Dean's hand trembling slightly. "With him in the hospital... it's been hard, not just on me; my mom and my sister are feeling it too. He's gonna die soon, Dean, and I'm scared it'll be before I'm ready to say goodbye."

Dean tensed up, squeezing Dennis' hand. "I... I am sorry. I... I do not think anybody ever truly  _ is _ ready to say goodbye, when it is someone they love."

"I know, I know," Dennis said, running a thumb across the other boy's hand. "But it's a lot different thinking that, and knowing it's coming, any day now."

"I... I know." Dean sighed, lowering his head. "I... I lost my mother, four years ago. It was... a shock, even after six months in the hospital. I always thought, that it would be the best-case scenario, that she would recover, but..."

Dennis' brow furrowed as he turned to look directly at Dean. "Really, Dean?" he snapped, pulling his hand out from under Dean's.

Dean blinked in confusion, then realized. "Ah, apologies, I. Was not trying to make this about me, I was just. I really  _ do _ know how you feel." He coughed awkwardly, angling his head away.

Dennis' shoulders dropped. "I know what you were trying to do, but... I figured the empath would have a  _ little _ more tact." Dennis sighed, before shuffling to a slightly more comfortable position. "Besides, what you went through, and what I'm going through, are two entirely different kettles of fish."

"...Could you elaborate?" Dean wasn't entirely sure, and didn't want to take the risk of assuming, especially not now.

"Dad was half our income, so now I'm stuck working overtime with the Wards to cover it and..." Dennis swallowed, dreading what he was about to say. "It's not enough, Dean. Our savings are draining by the day, Mom's burning herself out, and every extra patrol I take is another two hours where my dad might  _ die _ ."

Dean winced. Dennis' problem was one that he could solve oh so very easily, and yet... and yet  _ what? _ Dennis was a big boy, he can handle it. "I... Do you recall what I said to you, about half a year ago? I told you, we are teammates, and... and it is my job to look out for you."

"Dean,  _ don't _ ." Dennis' voice hitched as he interrupted Dean.

"Dennis,  _ please _ . Let me help."

" _ No! _ It's..." Dennis searched for the words, sure his aura was flaring like a sun going nova. "It's patronising. My father taught me it was beneath a man to beg for help, and this is what you say?" Dennis paused, spending a few seconds to just breathe, before beginning to speak again. "Even if I wanted to, I can't. Mom would ask questions, and what could I tell her?"

"That you have friends who care about you?" Dean realized as soon as he said it that it was the wrong thing. "Look, I. There are. I... Does your sister have a summer job?" Dean wasn't sure if he'd ever met Dennis' sister, or if she was old enough to have a summer job, but it was worth a shot.

"I-" He paused, thinking back. She'd actually been talking about that the night before at dinner, that no place was hiring. "No, no she doesn't."

"Tell her that the Stansfield Group is always offering paid internships," Dean said. The statement was a lie, but it would become the truth before sunrise. "Surely nobody will question  _ that _ .  _ And _ , your sister will learn skills she would ordinarily need to go to college for." That was the actual truth, stretched a little bit because some things one learned at Stansfield weren't taught in any classroom.

Dennis was silent for almost a minute, before nodding slightly. "Yeah, yeah, that.. that would be okay, I think." The corners of his lips upturned, just a fraction. "...thank you, Dean." He placed his hand back on top of Dean's. "You might have as much tact as Crawler, but you're a good man."

" _ Crawler? _ " Dean was clearly mortified by the comparison. "Well  _ that _ is a fine thank you- comparing me to a serial killer?" Dean harrumphed, before pulling Dennis into a hug. "...I love you."

Dennis returned the embrace, squeezing just a little harder. "...I love you too, Dean." He pressed his face into Dean's shoulder. "Thank you."

"Think nothing of it." He sighed contentedly. "...but  _ Crawler? _ "

"Okay,  _ fine, _ " Dennis said, chuckling, and kissed Dean's cheek. "You're much more handsome than Crawler, happy?"

"With you here, it would be difficult to be anything else," Dean said, blushing like a cherry tomato.

The two turned their heads back towards the television.

"...but seriously,  _ Crawler?! _ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a difficult conversation for me to write. I ended up having to roleplay it out with a friend. I'm not sure what made it more difficult- the whole emotional content of it, or the fact that it takes place entirely between two boys. Either way, this conversation is why it took a week.


	21. First Light

"Absolutely not," Carol said.

"Oh come on!" Vicky protested.

"Is there any particular reason  _ why? _ " Kenji asked. "This seems pretty straightforward to me: you're superheroes who don't hold yourselves to those stupid 'unwritten rules.' The opportunity to take down a particularly troublesome villain in his own lair should be making you salivate."

"We don't do that anymore," Carol said, shaking her head. "We did a few times, back when we were the Brockton Bay Brigade-" Kenji snorted and grinned. "I'm sorry, do you have something you'd like to say?"

"Not where you can hear it, no," Kenji said, still grinning.

"...Anyway," Carol said, before clearing her throat. "The unwritten rules, as stupid as they seem, are what keep us safe. If we're seen taking down a villain in their own lair like that, then the Empire, as jumpy as it is right now, will think we're a threat."

"...Are we not?" Vicky asked.

"You know what I mean," Carol said. "They know where we live, Victoria. We can't be seen breaking the unwritten rules, because then we're fair game."

"I've been meaning to give you shit about that," Kenji said. "I mean, good lord, letting everyone know who you are and where you live? There's a  _ reason _ why New Wave is the only hero team who does this. For all your talk about accountability, for all your talk about transparency,  _ revealing your identity to the public negatively impacts your ability to be a hero _ ."

"You have a very skewed idea of what being a hero is, young man," Carol said. "And it isn't difficult to figure out why. Sometimes, being a hero means helping in other ways. Do you know how many people are fed and clothed because of New Wave's efforts?"

"Upwards of eight," Kenji said. "But, whatever, I see your point. New Wave's heroism has shifted from fighting villains to general charitable efforts. Good for you, I suppose. Sorry for wasting your time with this."

"If you don't mind my asking, what is your fallback plan for this?" Carol asked. "Going to the Protectorate?"

"There's only one government hero in town I'd trust with this, and she's also the only one who'd recognize Teller Corcoran," Kenji said. "Oh, and also a Ward with little to no authority. No, I'll figure out something else. And in the meantime, I need to borrow your daughter for a few hours to move some furniture."

"And just what do you mean by that?" Carol asked.

"I need someone with super strength to move a pair of solid wood armchairs out of my apartment, into a van, and then back out of a van and into a building," Kenji said. "Vicky, you up for that?"

"Provided you buy me lunch, sure," Vicky said.

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Kenji said.

"Alright, you two be careful. Don't drop anything on your feet, you hear?" Carol said.

"Yes ma'am," Kenji said as he got up and left.

\---

"Wow, you weren't kidding," Vicky muttered as she paced a circle around the two wooden armchairs. "What's all this for?"

"That's an exploding armchair specifically to kill Lung," Kenji said.

"Oh holy shit."

"I'm half-Japanese," Kenji continued. "I have epicanthal folds, and I speak Japanese fluently. I can get Lung to meet me somewhere, under the pretense of alliance or parley or recruitment... and thus I can get him to sit in that chair. Then I just press this button and a shaped charge goes off, putting a ten inch spike of copper through his heart."

"Holy shit, dude," Vicky muttered.

"The idea is... all the stuff I've done so far- Hookwolf, Victor and Stormtiger and Cricket, all of that? That all could've been accomplished by some prick with bombs," Kenji said. "So by killing Lung with a bomb, I'm planting the idea that it  _ wasn't _ Red Wind, that it was just... some prick with bombs."

"Yeah, yeah, I can see that," Vicky muttered. "I mean, obviously it could also be Red Wind  _ using _ bombs because that's literally exactly what this is, but no one would suggest that without already knowing that's the case, cause it's kinda ridiculous."

"Yeah, that's the intent," Kenji said. "I still have a few phone calls and arrangements to make, so, take a seat- not in the armchairs- and get comfortable."

"It looks like you already prepared for Mom saying no," Vicky said as she sat down on the floor, tucking her feet under the coffee table. "Also, why don't you own a couch?"

"We don't get guests very often," Kenji said. "And yeah, trying to get New Wave was... honestly a last-minute thing. Part of it was, you want the limelight and I figured this'd get you that."

"Aw, that's sweet. Anyway, I was  _ about _ to say, you were already prepared for this plan to go through," Vicky said. "So why didn't you make those arrangements already?"

"Because I want you to talk me out of this," Kenji said as he sat down across from her. "I want you to convince me not to go through with this. Please."

"Uh... what?"

"Vicky, even if this goes completely right,  _ someone is going to die because of this _ ," Kenji said. "I don't want to kill anyone, Vicky. I don't want to be that person anymore."

"I- wh- Kenji, you kill people all the time," Vicky said. "Why do you only now have a problem with it?"

"You're only just now hearing about it because up until last week, you didn't know I was killing people," Kenji said. "And I can't keep doing this, Vicky, it's rotting my soul from the inside out. I came here to get away from this shit, but... well, fuck me for wanting to retire, huh?"

"What do you mean, rotting your soul?" Vicky asked. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I very much doubt that, but I'll explain anyway," Kenji said. "Cold-blooded killing is bad for you. Hot-blooded, that's a different story, but making the conscious decision to take someone's life and then actually  _ doing _ that... It fucks you up, psychologically. That memory, those thoughts, that  _ decision _ , all of that sticks with you, and it hangs over you like a light fog, and it colors everything. To have killed as much as I have, to have taken thirty seven human lives- men, women, children... It's seriously fucked me up, you know? I've been conditioned, by my parents and my own actions, to view individual human lives as disposable, as worthless. Do you have any idea how that might have happened to fuck up my social skills, Vicky? Do you think you can hazard a guess as to why viewing individuals, especially parahumans, as walking corpses waiting to happen might, just  _ might _ , impact my relationships with the people around me?"

"Okay, I think I get what you mean now," Vicky said. "Yeah, um. I think I'm with you on the 'you should stop killing people' thing. So, uh..." She got up.

"Don't," Kenji said. "Use your words, not your fists. Those are packed with high explosives, and I kinda sorta wired them to go off if they got smashed."

Vicky blinked a few times, before sitting back down. "Still, you get my point, right? Just... Don't do it."

"I have to do  _ something _ about Lung," Kenji said. "I can't reliably take him alive, and when I tried to get help... well, you were there."

"Why do you  _ have _ to do something about Lung?" Vicky asked. "You're supposed to be retired, why can't you just leave him be?"

Kenji wordlessly grabbed a spiral notebook with a yellow cover and flipped it open, and turned it around for Victoria to read.

"Okay, while Lung's rap sheet isn't helping my opinion of him, it still doesn't answer why you need to do something about him," Vicky said, looking up from the notebook.

"Page one," Kenji said flatly.

Vicky flipped to the first page of the notebook, and began reading aloud. "'The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.' Quote attributed to Plato." She lowered the notebook. "Okay, I can see where you're going with that. Little surprised you didn't go with the typical 'all evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing' quote, though."

"I was going to, but when I researched it to figure out who to attribute it to, I learned that while it's most often attributed to Edmund Burke, there's debate over whether or not he actually said it," Kenji said. "But we're getting sidetracked. I consider myself to be a good person, and I consider it worthwhile to put in the effort to actually be a good person. And while I'm not bothered by thieves and drug dealers, I  _ am _ bothered by murderers. Lung isn't just someone to pin all this on. Lung needs to be taken down. And from the looks of things... Nobody in town is able or willing to do it."

Vicky inhaled deeply, before sighing loudly. Her mind raced through the local roster, probing and prodding at personalities and powers, before she finally found her solution. "There  _ is _ someone else," she said. "Best of all, you know her."

"You don't mean..."

"Make arrangements for lunch in a room separate from the rest of the restaurant. Y'know, wherever that is. I'll give her a call."

"Alright, if you're sure," Kenji said.

"You know her, you should be just as sure as I am," Vicky said.

"Well, we didn't exactly part on great terms, is the thing," Kenji said. "But, well... she's a good woman. She knows that our genuinely fairly petty issues with each other don't hold a candle to this shit. I just have to, uh... put together my resume, if you will. Prove I've been doing something. And I happen to have just the thing under my bed. Wait right here."

He lept up and over the coffee table, leaping past Vicky, in one smooth motion, and bolted out of the living room. He returned less than five seconds later with a cardboard box sealed with duct tape, with the words "INFLATION PORN" written on it in sharpie.

"Kenji," Vicky said in a warning tone.

He sliced open the duct tape with a pocket knife, and set the now-open box on the table in front of her.

"...Oh. Okay, yeah, that'll  _ definitely _ be convincing," Vicky said.

\---

She walked into the restaurant, told the receptionist her name, and was led to the back, and ushered into a dark, private room. Sitting across from each other at the square, four-person table were two blondes she recognized- Lisa and Vicky. In the center of the table was a candle. And facing her was an albino boy with red eyes, epicanthal folds, and a green cemedani around his neck. Unfortunately, she recognized him as well.

"Teller fucking Corcoran," she said.

"Rebecca goddamned Anderson," he replied. "Weren't expecting me, were you, bitch?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna write "Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me." but it turns out that aired in 2013, and while Kenji's got a way with words, he's just not good enough to come up with that on his own.


	22. Lenses

"Didn't recognize you without the scar, Corky," Rebecca said, scowling as she sat down.

"What, you think I picked Brockton Bay out of a hat?" the boy who'd intended to go to Philadelphia asked. "While I can't say she's the  _ best _ friend I've made, Panacea is certainly a very  _ useful _ one."

"So just why did you invite me here, Teller?" Rebecca asked. "It's not like you to take social calls, and I'm pretty sure I don't have the time for one."

"Well, I didn't  _ just  _ want to catch up on what's been going on in the past half year, but it  _ is _ kind of a necessity. Consider it a briefing," Teller said. "People call me Kenji Takeuchi these days. Been filling my days with painting, lazing about, and desperately trying to reclaim the humanity that's been taken from me by my old job. But, you'll be happy to learn that I went back on the job just last month."

" _ Really _ , now," Rebecca said, folding her arms.

"Indeed. Behold." He snapped his fingers, and the room lit up with more candles. Hanging on the wall behind him were four masks, belonging to Hookwolf, Stormtiger, Cricket, and Victor. He'd kept them in a cardboard box up til that point. "The moment I learned of the existence of Empire 88, I put my newly adopted sister to work tracking them down."

"I'm a Thinker," Lisa said. "Super-powered intuition and information gathering, essentially."

"So, the platonic ideal of Thinker, basically," Rebecca said. "You know, Corky, I'm a little surprised with you. Where was this sorta zeal back when you were in the Wards? Why's it only now that you seem to give a shit? What, were Houston's meager villains just not good enough to warrant even the slightest hint of attention from our esteemed Master of the Eternal Flame?"

"Because there's a significant fucking difference between breaking the knees of a petty criminal and desperately trying to avert a second fucking Holocaust," Teller said. "Even ignoring the fact that our society is so fucked up that people are forced to choose between stealing and starving, do you  _ really _ think theft or drug dealing should carry the penalty of getting the shit kicked out of you by a cowboy ninja who's on fire? Yeah, most villains are too small-time to warrant my attention. You've had that right. But it's not because I'm lazy, it's because the closest I come to non-lethal is broken bones and burned hands. And most villains? Just straight-up don't have that comin' to 'em. I'm being  _ conscientious _ , Rebecca. Not arrogant."

There was a pause, as Rebecca took it in, before she sighed.

"You know, Teller," she began, "if you'd, just, y'know,  _ explained _ this position to me a year or two back, you coulda saved us both a  _ lot _ of trouble. We might even still be friends. And that makes me wonder- why  _ didn't _ you explain this position to me at literally any other point in time?"

"Because quite honestly, up until now I didn't have a pressing need to do so," Teller said. "When we were friends, I assumed that I didn't need to explain to you that breaking someone's knees for stealing was wrong, or why. And when we stopped being friends, I didn't really care about your opinion of me anymore, and if you thought I was nothing more than a dewdropper-"

"A  _ what now _ ?" Lisa asked.

"Early 20th century slang for a lazy man," Teller said. "Anyway, Rebecca, if you thought I was nothing but a dewdropper-"

"Oh, I thought you were a grandstanding, shiftless layabout who had nothing better to do than bask in an eternal limelight of undeserved praise, all on account of Eidolon being drinking buddies with your parents," Rebecca said. "And meanwhile, everyone  _ else _ in Houston, the people who got actual work done, they were relegated to the side roles, almost always uncredited."

"Okay, see, I know you're unhappy with that state of affairs, but so was I," Teller said. "And admittedly, your anger at me didn't bother me much. It was misdirected, and it wasn't any skin off my nose, either. Not like you're my boss, or my mom. And, well... I suppose up until recently, I wasn't really in a position to articulate it? I mean, I had bigger worries up until I got out of Houston, and it was only when I got out that I could really, properly  _ think _ about all this shit. I mean, fuck's sake, Rebecca, I'm sixteen. I just wasn't equipped to formulate a coherent explanation and defense of my moral and ethical standpoint until fairly recently, and it's fucked up that I ever had a pressing need to do so."

"Alright, alright. Well, one more important question I think needs answering," Rebecca said. "Just why the  _ hell _ did you run off? And what the fuck happened to your parents?"

Teller silently pulled out a tape recorder, pressed play, and made everyone listen to the interview again.

"...New question," Rebecca said after the recording stopped. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

"I answered that in the interview, actually," Teller said. "Funny thing- I've never wanted you dead. Sure, I've been mad at you a few times, but I've never wanted you dead. Now, my  _ parents _ ..."

"Yeah, of course you wanted them dead. You fucking killed them," Rebecca said.

"No,  _ they _ wanted  _ you _ dead," Teller said. "Thought you strung 'em along."

"...I beg your fucking pardon?"

"They were fucking  _ obsessed _ with the notion of second-gen capes, of capes having tons of children. And they looked at you, a cape with a potent powerset who was friends with me, and thought- a reminder for everyone, Rebecca and I were like fourteen at the time- 'oh, these kids'll  _ definitely _ fuck one day.' And so when that New Year's kiss at midnight led you to realize you were a lesbian,  _ I  _ thought it was fucking hilarious because, like, it  _ was _ , but good lord Mom just about hit the fucking roof."

"You know what, Teller, I think we should stop talking about your parents," Rebecca said. "And the past in general. Let's get down to brass tacks: just  _ why _ am I here, hm?"

"Like we said before we got sidetracked, I've gathered a bunch of information on Empire 88, as well as Lung," Lisa said. "And where  _ you  _ come in is, all this information, all these villains? Yeah, that's your problem now. New Wave's too public to actually, like,  _ do _ anything about these villains besides make their public appearances riskier, and you're the only person in that fucking clown college we call the Protectorate that anyone in this room can trust."

"If New Wave can't do anything, then why the hell is she here?" Rebecca asked, pointing at Vicky.

"He promised me lunch, and I'm not going home until I get lunch," Vicky said with a shrug. "Hey, how exactly are we supposed to place our orders? The waiter doesn't come in here."

"The waiter doesn't come in here because I paid him fifty dollars not to do so," Teller said. "After we're done talking here, I'll take down the masks- it was honestly kind of impractical to put them up there in the first place, but I'm nothing if not willing to be dramatic- and then we'll get the waiter. Anyway, Rebecca, next question?"

"Why're you passing the buck to me?" Rebecca asked. "You're  _ clearly _ capable of mopping up the Nazis yourself, if those masks on the wall are any indication."

"Body count so far, twelve people," Teller said. "Only four of 'em were capes. Only two of 'em I set out to kill. It's hardly a mop-up when it makes that big of a mess as a side effect. Why don't you explain for us  _ your _ power, so everyone's clear on why you're the better choice for this?"

"I'm a fairly strong Alexandria Package, and my accessory power is perception and emission of the full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation," Rebecca said. "Hence 'Solar.'"

"What's electromagnetic radiation?" Vicky asked.

"Light," Lisa said.

"And radio waves, and microwaves, and ultraviolet, and infrared, and x-rays, and gamma rays." Rebecca said. "My preferred nonlethal takedown is at range with a conical microwave emission. Hurts like a bitch, but it doesn't inflict any serious or lasting damage."

"There's also the fact that if someone  _ is _ immune to radiation-based attacks, such as myself-" Teller began.

"Wait, you're  _ what? _ " Vicky asked.

"Manton Effect," Teller said. "It's not about living and non-living material, not really. It's about the mechanisms powers come with to keep you from killing yourself, and it's why super-strength so often comes with super-durability. Pyrokinetics are immune to heat, and there's three forms of it- conduction, convection... and radiation. Which means I can stare at the sun without issue, and get microwaved without feeling a thing. That  _ doesn't _ mean I'm a hard counter to Rebecca, though."

"Right, I'm still an Alexandria Package, so I can still just, y'know. Grab you, and not let go," Rebecca said. "I'm  _ also _ immune to heat, thanks to my power. But, Teller, you  _ also _ have nonlethal takedowns, is the thing."

"I have fire and my fists," Teller said. "Both of which cover a range from ineffective to lethal, and skipping over 'reliably incapacitating but nonlethal.'"

"What about that stupid lasso you always carry?"

"I  _ stopped _ carrying it back in '09, on account I damn near  _ hung  _ myself with the thing."

"Kenji Takeuchi, you are my brother and I love you, but I am never going to let you live down the fact that you used to carry a  _ lasso _ around," Lisa said.

"Laugh all you want, but that lasso has brought down seven villains," Teller said. "I actually still have it, even to this day. Just don't  _ carry _ it, because it nearly killed me. Anyway, before Vicky makes a bondage joke, I think we've established just why Rebecca is undeniably the better hero for the job when it comes to this mess."

"Not for Lung," Rebecca said. "He's a pyrokinetic, so he's just as immune to radiation as you are."

"Yeah, well, like I said, you're pretty strong," Teller said, before setting a pair of brass knuckles on the table. "Lisa here- who you'll refer to as an independent hero named Skiptracer- will tell you exactly where Lung is, and all you have to do is fly through a wall and punch him in the sternum."

"Teller, that kills people," Rebecca said.

"He's a Brute, he can take it," Teller said. "But still, I suppose there's other options. You could, uh, requisition some... I dunno, horse tranquilizer or something. The PRT's got combat tranquilizers, just get your hands on those."

"It's gonna be hard to convince the quartermaster that I intend to use them for their intended purpose," Rebecca muttered, rubbing her chin. "I dunno if you've noticed, but racism still exists, and that grumpy old white dude who most definitely remembers Jim Crow is probably gonna think I plan to use them recreationally."

"Well, ask Gallant to requisition them for you," Teller said. "And if he asks why, tell him that you're not sure you have that kind of pull, and that you've been chasing a lead in your own time that you'd rather not discuss."

"Except the lead came and found me, and handed me a weapon and a name," Rebecca said flatly.

"Details, details," Teller said, waving dismissively. "So. You in?"

Rebecca glanced at Vicky, who wasn't entirely certain why she was there, and Lisa, who was grinning smugly at her. She then sighed, and took the brass knuckles, stuffing them into a pocket.

"I'm in," Rebecca said. "Where is he?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hypothetical version of Teller Corcoran who didn't kill his parents is constantly hounded about his love life by his parents, who think he should be having as much unprotected sex as is humanly possible.  
> Whether or not Teller would respond by deliberately making himself the most unfuckable man in the world depends entirely upon how easily he could get a vasectomy.  
> Also, fun fact: originally this chapter was gonna end with Rebecca agreeing to the plan on the condition that Teller go to church and talk to a priest. The next chapter would feature Teller and Rebecca preparing to visit a Quaker church, talking some more about their faiths and Rebecca's background, and ending with the punchline that Quakers don't have priests.


	23. Winding Down

"So when did you two get a cat?" Vicky asked. "And why didn't you get a couch with it?"

"Why are you such a tremendous fucking baby about sitting on the floor?" Kenji asked. "And we got Jaspers here a few days ago. He was one of those 'at-risk' cats at the shelter, as you can tell by the black fur and the missing leg. To be honest, I kinda felt like I  _ had _ to take him with me, rather than some other cat. And so far, Jaspers has rewarded me for my kindness with non-stop affection."

Lisa was on the phone in the other room, playing the role of Skiptracer, and making use of Kenji's aerokinesis to keep her conversation separate from his and Vicky's.

"I bet you're pretty familiar with that sorta situation," Vicky said.

"Pardon?" Kenji asked, looking up from the feline mass of darkness, noise, and love in his arms.

"Y'know, with your so-called sister?"

"My sister is not a cat," Kenji said, unknowingly quoting Coil. "And I didn't beat up what turned out to not be a security guard just because I felt like adopting someone, I did it because my 'excessive force' senses were tingling and I kinda dissociated like a motherfucker as instinct took over and I came to holding a gun that didn't belong to me and standing over a man bleeding from a frankly excessive number of nonetheless non-lethal wounds."

"There's a lot going on with that sentence," Vicky said.

"I did it on purpose cause I thought it'd be funny," Kenji said, before setting Jaspers down on the table. "Anyway, uh. So, how's your summer been so far?"

"...Turbulent," Vicky said, scratching Jaspers behind the ears..

"That's almost entirely my fault, isn't it?"

"Well, no, Dean breaking up with me... was sparked by something you did, so yeah actually, it really  _ is _ entirely your fault."

"Sorry about that," Kenji said, scratching the back of his neck. "Well, let's hope the next little while is a bit more calm and peaceful, huh?"

\---

"...So, how likely do you think it is that Skiptracer is behind the recent string of explosions at Empire facilities?" Armsmaster asked. Present at the meeting were half of the local Protectorate and Solar, who was the only one who worked with Skiptracer in any capacity.

"Not very," Solar said. "If Skiptracer was capable of killing Hookwolf and the others, then Lung wouldn't have presented a challenge."

"Fire can't kill a dragon," Assault said.

"I have watched Red Wind kick the shit out of no fewer than three dragon-themed capes, so yes it absolutely can," Solar said. "And I'm not sure what you mean, and I don't want to hazard a guess."

"Skiptracer might be able to make bombs," Assault said. "And bombs probably wouldn't kill Lung."

"Thermobarics, no," Solar said. "Literally any other kind would probably still do the trick, if you knew exactly where he was and when he'd be there, which. She demonstrably did. Hence the name Skiptracer."

"The question is, does she know  _ how _ to make the sort of bomb that would kill Lung?" Battery asked.

Solar reached into a pocket, of which her costume had many, and produced a paperback handbook, and turned it so everyone could see the cover. "US Army Improvised Munitions Handbook," she said. "Freely available, and provides step-by-step instructions for the production of all sorts of explosive devices, including thermobaric devices and, most importantly,  _ shaped charges _ . If a well-placed punch in the sternum can put Lung down, then a spike of metal through the heart would  _ definitely _ kill him."

"Is that what a shaped charge does?" Assault asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," Solar said. "It really is only slightly more complicated than that- really, the only other thing you need to worry about is maintaining an appropriate gap between the charge and what you're going to blast through. And if you're asking why I know this, it's because I used to be friends with a dangerous idiot who owned a copy of this book and knew a few places outside town where nobody would notice a few homebrewed explosives going off."

"Enough," Armsmaster said. "We've established that, if we assume Skiptracer caused the recent incidents with bombs, she would have been able to kill Lung with yet another bomb. The question now is, is there any good reason why she would have been able to do so but chosen not to? Or is that assumption faulty?"

"Could be misdirection," Battery proposed.

"No," Solar said, shaking her head. "No, I know what a killer looks and acts like. Skiptracer ain't that."

"Then who else could it be?" Armsmaster asked. "Clearly  _ someone _ did it."

"I suspect Oni Lee," Solar said. "He teleports and uses grenades. I wouldn't put it past him to whip up some more potent explosives and go up against the Empire, now that he's got Lung backing him. Now that he  _ doesn't _ , I doubt he's going to dare so much as stick his head out."

"Hrm... we don't know much about him, but what we  _ do _ know fits that bill," Armsmaster said, stroking his bearded chin. "...Alright, I think that's solid enough to put forward as our primary hypothesis. Battery, Solar, I want you two to go over the full roster of villains sometime and do some light analysis on every single one of them. Yes, this includes Empire capes- I wouldn't be surprised if there were schisms in the ranks. Assault, you're going to dig up everything we have on Oni Lee, and I am going to figure out how much of that we're allowed to hand to Skiptracer. Dismissed."

\---

"James."

_ "Max, do you know what time it is here?" _

"Eleven forty five PM. Or did you forget that worldwide clock set you gave me as a Christmas gift?"

_ "This better be important, Max. I'm on vacation." _

"I've just received word that the PRT has captured Lung, with the help of an independent hero named Skiptracer."

_ "...Is Lung the one responsible for your recent losses?" _

"Potentially, but Victor was fairly certain that it wasn't."

_ "Can you please skip to the point?" _

"I need you back here as soon as you can manage. This is going to be a tremendous mess."

\---

"Sorry about all that, Amy," Lisa said, taking a seat on the floor of Amy's room. Vicky seemed to be the oddball even among New Wave when it came to being unwilling to sit on the floor. "Trust me, I didn't really want to do any of that, either."

"God, I know how that goes," Amy muttered. "I can only hope your brother even bothered to  _ ask _ ."

"Well, it was more my idea than anything, and he didn't want to do it either," Lisa said. "But, anyway, enough of that. What've you been up to?"

"Replaying Super Paper Mario," Amy said. "Which... god, I forgot how  _ good _ this game was."

"Is that the one where an evil clown murders Mario and he goes to hell?"

"Yes, it is the one where an evil clown murders Mario and he goes to hell."

"God, the Paper Mario games are fucking buckwild," Lisa muttered. "...Fuck, I need to grab a copy sometime. I lost my original back in Galveston."

"Lisa, I know you're not actually from Galveston," Amy said.

"You actually know nothing of the sort," Lisa said. "And if I'm  _ not _ from Galveston, I still absolutely am not going to tell you otherwise. Anyway, you get what I mean- I used to have a copy of the game, but I don't anymore, and I lost it because of the thing that ultimately brought me to Brockton Bay."

"...Alright," Amy muttered. "So what have you been playing recently?"

"Been replaying Mario Galaxy 2," Lisa said. "I got it when it came out, and- have you played Galaxy 2 yet?"

"No, I haven't," Amy said. "Is it just more of Galaxy 1?"

"It'd still be a damn fine game if it was, but it's a lot more than that," Lisa said. "Honestly, it makes Galaxy 1 feel like a tech demo- it's just  _ that _ much better and more refined. I'll loan you my copy if you loan me Super Paper Mario."

"...Deal."

"Also, I got a PS3 because I wanted to play Metal Gear-"

"That came out two years ago."

"I've been busy, and also homeless for a while. Anyway, I tried to justify that purchase to myself a little more, and picked up a game called Demon's Souls."

"I think I've heard of that one. What's it like?"

"It's a, uh, it's this 3rd person action game, and it's hard as nails. Like. Really fucking hard. Ordinarily, I would've just given up on it and stopped playing, but..."

"But what?"

"My asshole piece of shit brother picked up the controller and beat the game in three hours, and I refuse to let him outdo me."

"Oh my god."

"Also, I got a cat, and you're going to have to look at fifty billion pictures of him."

\---

"Oh hey, so  _ that's _ what it looks like when a three-legged cat walks over a wet painting and then the floor!"

"Okay, so, step one, clean up the ink, step two fix the painting, and step zero, step outside and  _ scream _ ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaspers is, in fact, a Homestuck reference. As for what he looks like... well, imagine a typical black cat, with bright gold-yellow eyes. Now imagine it's missing its right foreleg. Throw in a few little notches on its ears- barely perceptible, but still there- and you've got a cat that looks like Jaspers.  
> Personality-wise, he's very, extremely stupid, and loves to yell.  
> Also, I have been made unwillingly aware that "fire cannot kill a dragon" is a Game of Thrones reference. I have decided that George RR Martin's book series does not exist in the Vagrant universe, because I don't like it and nobody can stop me from retconning it to not exist. In the Vagrant universe, this line instead references an insanely popular Pokemon fan-comic that for some reason everyone's heard of, which may be really stupid, but at least it isn't Game of Thrones.


	24. Catspaw & Mouse

"...and that is the situation thus far."

"I see, I see," Krieg muttered, stroking his chin. "...If Skiptracer is  _ truly _ independent, I'll eat your hat."

"Oh?" Kaiser asked, quirking an eyebrow uselessly under his helmet.

"Think, Kaiser," Krieg said. "Skiptracer was able to find Lung's exact location, down to the specific room at the exact time. Who in this city do we know that has that power?"

"Thor does," Kaiser said. "Well, did. He hasn't been seen in a month."

"And why  _ hasn't _ he been seen in a month?" Krieg asked. "Because he  _ defected _ , Kaiser."

"Perhaps," Kaiser said. "I interviewed him myself. He seemed too stupid to entertain thoughts of treachery."

"I never said he did it on his own," Krieg said. "I have also spoken with him a few times. He joined us seeking a sense of community and belonging, Kaiser. A sense of  _ family _ . And who is better equipped to provide that than an  _ actual _ family?"

"New Wave, hm?" Kaiser asked. "Odd that they would let the Protectorate do the dirty work they're so obviously capable of."

"Not so," Krieg said, shaking his head. "New Wave has quite a lot to hide, after all. They cannot be seen engaging in such aggressive tactics. As for why they outsourced to the Protectorate for Lung, well, perhaps Mr. Turner- and that is, in retrospect, one of the least trustworthy names I've heard- was unconfident in his abilities. Against one such as Lung, that is not unreasonable."

Kaiser hemmed and hawed for a few moments, before sighing. "Well, I'm convinced. How do you propose we track him down, before he costs us anything more?"

"The practice of marrying off daughters to cement alliances, while certainly not as common in the modern day, is still an idea that would occur naturally to most leaders who are also parents," Krieg said. "New Wave are local celebrities- we'll see which of their daughters has a new boyfriend. He may not fully resemble Turner, either- they have Panacea, who may well be able to perform plastic surgery."

"Very well," Kaiser said. "I trust you to handle this. See to it that Justin Turner's head is on either a pike or my desk by the end of summer."

"I will need to borrow a few resources," Krieg said. "I will need use of the machine shop."

"You may have it, but tell me, what do you need the machine shop for?"

"Just a little something to deal with Thor's lightning. Can't have him able to fight back, after all, can we?" Krieg chuckled, before turning to leave. "I remember enough of Mr. Turner to know that he is a complete idiot. He will be no trouble at all."

\---

"Isn't Thor impossible to sneak up on?" Kayden asked, nervously wringing her hands.

"He is perhaps one of the dumbest, least-aware men I have ever met," Krieg said. "His heritage certainly didn't do him any favors... No, Thor is very possible to sneak up on, because he so rarely uses his power."

"And you know this because?"

"Because I have snuck up on him, entirely by accident, on more than one occasion."

The two of them were in a hastily rented apartment, along with six armed men in suits of chainmail. Kayden worked as an interior designer, and it was no trouble at all for her to arrange an 'on-site meeting' with this so-called artist, this so-called Kenji Takeuchi(a name she suspected was entirely made-up). He would be there soon, and hopefully, that leak would be plugged.

\---

"Vicky, come on, get up," Kenji said, looking down at the girl sitting in his lap, fast asleep. "I have somewhere I have to be." Adding insult to injury, Jaspers was asleep in her lap. "Vicky, I really can't afford to burn this bridge. Not this early."

"Mmm... but I don't want you to go," Vicky muttered. "I'm so cozy like this..."

"I know, and it's really endearing, but I was offered good money to be somewhere and I'd  _ so _ rather not be thought of as a flake, because that's going to seriously hurt my chances of staying in this field in the future."

"Y'don't, need a job. You're gonna be a house-husband anyway."

"This is our third date, Vicky. Neither of us knows anywhere near enough about the other to say anything about our relationship in the future yet."

"...Still not getting up."

"Brat." Kenji fished out his phone, with great effort, and dialed a number before putting it to his ear.

\---

"Quiet, quiet, I'm getting a call from him," Kayden said, before answering her phone. "Hello?"

_ "Hi, Kayden, it's me, Kenji. I'm afraid I can't make it to our meeting- or anywhere outside my apartment today." _

Krieg groaned loudly.

_ "I know, this is really inconvenient, and I'm sorry, but I'm afraid there isn't really anything I can do about it." _

"Do you mind telling me just what, exactly, happened?" Kayden asked, maintaining a veneer of professionalism.

_ "My cat just vomited everything in his stomach and I'm taking him to the vet to make sure it's nothing that'll kill him." _

"I... see."

_ "I'm afraid I have to go n- Jaspers, no!" _

Kenji hung up, and Kayden groaned as she pocketed her phone.

"So this is what professionals are like now," Krieg muttered.

"Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that cat story for a second, but if it  _ is _ true... that's reasonable," Kayden said. "But he's probably hungover, or something like that."

\---

"Did you know that Elvis Presley was a registered DEA officer?" Kenji asked.

"I beg your entire fucking pardon, sir," Vicky said, trying her best to turn around and look at Kenji despite the cat in her lap.

"Yeah, he asked Nixon and Nixon said 'sure, why not,'" Kenji said. "He also gave Nixon a gun."

"That's... hm." Vicky pondered this for a short while. "Speaking of giving people guns-"

"No you cannot have yours back."

"Come  _ on! _ "

"Your mother was very clear on this," Kenji said. "If I give that gun back to you outside of a firing range, she's going to hack it into pieces. Just wait until you're 18, alright?"

"But that's so far away," Vicky whined.

"It's a year and some change, depending on when your birthday is," Kenji said.

"My birthday is public information," Vicky said.

"Yes, but for some reason it feels creepy and dehumanizing to google my girlfriend's birthday instead of just, like, asking her like a normal human being," Kenji said. "So, uh, when's your birthday?"

"August 20th," Vicky said. "Right before school starts up again."

"Oh, that's depressing," Kenji said. "Guess I'll have to make sure your gift is especially good to make up for it."

"You could give me my gun back."

"I absolutely cannot do that, actually.  _ But _ , I'll see what else I can do."

"You're the  _ worst _ ."

"Remember that guitar-axe thing I suggested, the first time we met?"

"Yes, and I'm mad you've only come up with one other idea as bad as that in my presence."

"Are you still not over the lasso thing?"

"No I am not. Nor am I over the fact that we are still  _ on the goddamned floor _ ."

"We are  _ not _ on the floor, we're on a Japanese futon that I laid out  _ specifically to stop your bitching _ . Besides, it's not  _ my _ fault you're too tall to sit in my lap properly."

"Yeah well it's not  _ my _ fault that you're too  _ short! _ That's  _ your _ fault for not drinking enough milk growing up!"

"Vicky, I know it's easy to forget, since I'm an albino, but  _ I am not white _ . I'm Asian, and Asians are shorter than Europeans, and they're also, for the most part, lactose intolerant."

"Wait, really? The, uh, lactose intolerance thing."

"Yeah. Europeans are the weirdos of the world in that regard- Africans, Asians, and Native Americans are all, as a general whole with a few exceptions, lactose intolerant."

"That's weird as hell."

"No, what's weird is Europeans domesticating cattle so that grown men and women could slurp down some animal's titty squeezings."

"If you ever say the phrase 'titty squeezings' where I can hear it, I'm going to break up with you."

"That's fair."

\---

"Right, well, we'll just have to try again next week," Kayden said.

"Next week?" Krieg asked, taken aback. "What in god's name is preventing you from doing this again  _ tomorrow? _ "

"For one, it's gonna be suspicious if we reschedule to the next day," Kayden said. "And two, interior design is my day job, and I have contractual obligations I need to meet."

"Sir, does she actually need to be here?" one of the men in chainmail asked.

"Yes, unfortunately, because as was just demonstrated, if something does not go according to plan, Kayden is the one who will receive the call and find out," Krieg said, before sighing. "Right, well, everyone take off your chainmail and leave. Our business here is do-  _ in that order _ , you  _ imbecile! _ Do  _ not _ walk out in public wearing  _ chainmail! _ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upwards of 90% of Japanese people are lactose intolerant. Roughly 75% of Black Americans are lactose intolerant. Roughly 70% of Ashkenazi Jews in North America are lactose intolerant.  
> Basically, none of the main boys in Vagrant(Dean, Dennis, and Kenji) can have dairy. This is, to me, very funny, because I actually did not plan this at all- I just forgot that white people were pretty much the only ones who can eat cheese.


	25. Mayors & Medics

"Hello, this is Kenji Takeuchi speaking. Do you mind if I put you on speaker? My hands are a little full at the moment."

_ "Uh, sure, go on ahead. My, uh, my friend Dean, Dean Stansfield, he said that you could babysit my little cousin?" _

Kenji put the phone on speaker and set it on the counter as he cooked dinner. "That is, admittedly, a bit outside my professional wheelhouse, but... how old is this cousin of yours?"

_ "About eleven or so." _

"Okay, I think I can manage that, yes. There are some conditions I should mention, of course- I will be bringing my sister with me, which, if you ask your friend Dean, you will learn I do for every appointment."

_ "That sounds fine to me. Uh, how much is this gonna cost?" _

"That brings me to my next condition. I'm a professional artist, and if you're alright with me bringing art supplies with me and working on my painting while I'm there, it'll only run you fifteen dollars an hour.  _ But _ , if you'd rather I didn't, for whatever reason- I won't pry- then it'll run you a full thirty an hour."

_ "Uh... what does art supplies mean?" _

"A brush, water-soluble ink, paper, and a painter's dropcloth to keep ink from getting on anything else."

_ "Yeah, we can work with that. So, uh, this is going to be next Saturday, from six PM to eight? Is that alright?" _

"I'm free then, yes," Kenji said. "Give me a moment- Lisa! Come write down an address for me, please."

Lisa got up, walked to the kitchen, and wrote down the address that came out of the phone.

"A pleasure doing business with you, Mr...?"

_ "Oh, uh... I'm Rory. Rory Christner. See you then." _

Rory hung up, and Kenji poured the contents of the pan into a pair of bowls while Jaspers watched from the floor with open hunger and greed, despite his full bowl of cat food right beside him.

"Gotta admit," Lisa said as she took one of the bowls. "I didn't expect to like tofu. Guess I just had the bad kind back home, the one time I tried it."

"Was it at a restaurant, or at home?" Kenji asked.

"At home, I got it from a grocery store," Lisa said as she sat down at the table. "I know what you're about to say- the trick is to actually cook it, with other ingredients and seasoning, just like any other food. I didn't know at the time because I was twelve and didn't know shit about tofu."

"That's fair," Kenji said with a shrug, sitting down across from her. "I mean, Texas ain't exactly a hot-spot of Asian culture. At least, Houston wasn't. Dunno how things were for you in your part of Texas."

"Pretty much the same," Lisa said. "Never told you I was from Texas, though- you just guessed at that."

"No, but you  _ did _ tell me your legal name and a personal detail that'd be easily googlable," Kenji said. "You're from San Antonio. How's the Alamo, by the by?"

"A tourist trap worth seeing exactly once and never again," Lisa said flatly. "Anyway, can we move on? I ran away from all that for a  _ reason _ ."

"Yeah, sure. So, the other day..."

\---

"Something just opened up," Kayden said. "How free is your weekend?"

_ "I  _ was _ going to visit my mother-in-law with my wife and children, but I suppose if work calls, there's hardly anything I can do about that, is there?" _ Krieg said.

"Excellent," Kayden said. "You make arrangements with your assistants. I'm going to make my own."

_ "Very well. Goodbye." _

Krieg hung up, and Kayden dialed another number.

"Hello there, Kenji."

_ "...Kayden Anders, was it? I suppose you're calling to reschedule? Still really sorry about that, by the way." _

"Don't worry about it," Kayden said. "One of my timeslots just opened up, so we can actually try it again this Saturday."

_ "... _ When,  _ on Saturday?" _

"Six PM," Kayden said. "Why, do you have something going on?"

_ "Prior commitments involving the close family of the mayor. A terrible shame you didn't call a few minutes earlier- mayor's son  _ just _ got off the phone with me." _

Kayden covered the microphone, and groaned. She uncovered the microphone, and spoke again. "How about Sunday? Are you free on Sunday?"

_ "I'm afraid not, no, I have a few prior obligations that will take all day- I teach a painting class at a community center, and I also have to attend a meeting for an anthology I'm participating in, and after  _ that _ I need to visit a local swordsmith for obvious reasons... all in all, Sunday is  _ very _ busy for me. Terribly sorry. But, well, are you free this... Tuesday? At 4 PM?" _

Kayden couldn't think of a single 'obvious' reason to visit a swordsmith, but didn't give voice to that, instead gritting her teeth. "Yes, I am available this Tuesday at 4 PM. I will see you there, at the same address I gave you last time."

_ "I'm afraid I may have misplaced that piece of paper." _

" _ Find it _ ," Kayden snapped, before hanging up. She dialed another number, and sighed as it rang.

_ "What is it this time?"  _ Krieg asked, having picked up on the third ring.

"It's not this weekend," Kayden said. "It's on Tuesday."

_ "I  _ just _ canceled my  _ fucking _ plane ticket god  _ damn _ it Kayden-" _

"This is hardly  _ my _ fault!"

_ "You made it sound like a sure thing! I- apologies, honey, it's... I know, I'm sorry, I- I'll keep it down. Sorry." _ The next thing to come through the phone was whispered.  _ "If I did not need you, I would have ended your life by now." _

"I'd like to see you try," Kayden said, before hanging up.

\---

"So it's not because of Coil, who for all we know really  _ did _ just skip town when you told him to because he realized you're Red Wind," Lisa said. "And it isn't really paranoia in general, I can tell that much."

"Hm?"

"So why  _ do _ you insist on bringing me with you on just about every job?" Lisa asked.

"Because I need someone to write shit down so my clients will shut the fuck up," Kenji said. "There's also the obvious stuff about how I don't want you getting bored on your own, and also I enjoy your company and your presence, but mostly I'm just using you as a prop."

"I was half-expecting you to say something about making me work for a living."

"I'm not the sort of callous asshole who thinks a person has to be productive to be worth keeping alive. Come on, I thought you knew me better than that."

"Yeah, well, you're pretty callous in other regards," Lisa said, slipping a jean jacket onto her shoulders. The two of them were Texan, and temperate summers of the coast were tolerable in a jacket, which helped the two of them hide all sorts of things they shouldn't be carrying. Like guns. Which are hideously illegal to carry in New Jersey without a license. "Like that incident with your half-brother."

"Congratulations, you've discovered that there's different ways for a person to be callous," Kenji said, opening the door. "Now isn't the time for this kinda discussion, though, because we  _ do _ in fact have somewhere to be."

\---

Amy stumbled out of the room in a hurry, and stuck her head into the garbage can before vomiting. Vicky snapped to attention from her post beside the door, and was quick to start rubbing Amy's back, trying to soothe her stomach.

"Another case of Crohn's Disease, huh?" Vicky asked.

"I- I can't," Amy gasped out.

"Right, HIPAA, shouldn't have as-"

"I can't do this, anymore," Amy said, lifting her head out of the garbage can.

"Oh. Okay, I'll tell the doctors we'll come back lat-"

"No, Vicky, I can't, I..." Amy swallowed, blinking away tears. "I  _ can't do this anymore _ , Vicky."

\---

"...Ah, hell," Kenji muttered, pulling out his phone, before answering it. "Hospital? Amy? Gotcha." He hung up, and groaned.

"We're missing another appointment, aren't we?" Lisa asked.

"Yes we are," Kenji muttered, before dialing another number. "Hi, Kayden, I'm  _ really _ sorry to cancel on you again, but my girlfriend's sister is in the hospital."

_ "Your girlfriend is Glory Girl and her sister is Panacea," _ Kayden growled from the other side.

"Whether you believe it is immaterial," Kenji said. "Read our contract carefully- all I have to do is call ahead. I'm still fulfilling my contractual obligations." He hung up, and silenced his phone, before sticking it in his pocket. "I swear, that woman's going to be the death of me."

"Kayden or Vicky?"

"Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dinah doesn't have superpowers yet. That's why you didn't see Kenji babysitting Dinah. Because she is still currently an ordinary eleven year old. And that would be boring.  
> Also I have never been a babysitter and do not recall having a babysitter that wasn't one of my sisters, so I have no clue how this sort of thing would go, and therefore I am hideously unqualified to write that scene.
> 
> Also, sorry for forgetting to upload this chapter. I forgot I didn't until I had finished the next one, which will be going up shortly.


	26. To The Bone

"We know where he is-" Krieg began.

"We  _ don't _ ," Kayden said. "New Wave never announces the hospital they're visiting until after the fact, for security reasons."

"There's only three of them in town," Krieg said. "We have watchers all over town as well-"

"And we know for a fact that Glory Girl is present," Kayden said. "Between an Alexandria package, a Blaster, and whatever the hell Kenji's so-called 'sister' is... I don't like those odds. And that raises another problem- there's been a Kenji Takeuchi running around this city, painting for Roland Stansfield, since January. He's had a sister he's inseparable from that entire time. Are we sure we have the right guy?"

" _ I _ am the one in charge here, Purity. Do  _ not _ question me again," Krieg growled.

\---

"Alright, so," Kenji said, closing the door and exhaling loudly. "...Talk to me, Ames. Tell me what's wrong." He was wearing a white doctor's labcoat on top of his hoodie, and acted as though it was completely normal.

"What, don't you know already?" Amy asked, looking up from her lap. She was sitting down on the examination table- they'd commandeered the usage of an examination room for about twenty minutes. Thankfully, it was already free. "You're some super mega-genius or whatever the fuck. You should already know, and then tell me what my problem is, then tell me to do the obvious solution that's so obvious I already know why it wouldn't work."

"Y'know, I've actually done that a few times before," Kenji said. "Funny thing, though- it doesn't work, and also, nobody likes it. So I stopped."

Amy sighed, folding her arms and looking away.

"But that doesn't mean I need everything spelled out for me, either," Kenji said. "I'm not gonna make you talk about it- that  _ also _ doesn't work."

"Mm." Amy sighed again. "...Why did you leave the Wards?"

"A variety of reasons," Kenji said. "To get away from my parents, and to escape the modern paradigm of superheroism that just... doesn't  _ fucking _ work."

"You burned out?" Amy asked.

"Kinda, sorta," Kenji said. "I just realized that... what I was doing  _ didn't work _ . I was wasting my time. And, well, I've known it since I was 13. It's why I stopped doing the hero shit when I came to Brockton Bay- the cape shit is, honestly, mostly just a stupid fucking game. Only started back up because it's all fun and games until someone brings swastikas into the equation."

Amy chuckled weakly. "Yeah, you picked the wrong city to retire to."

"I didn't pick this city," Kenji said. "I picked Philadelphia, but I fell asleep on the fucking bus and ended up in fucking Brockton Bay, home of saltwater taffy, which was invented when some prick's candy shop flooded and he shrugged and just sold the brine-soaked candy to children  _ anyway _ , because everyone in this god-forsaken city is in some way shape or form morally reprobate."

"Even you?"

"I'm not from here, but at the same time, I  _ am _ a murderer, so." Kenji shrugged. "Clearly, fate intended for me to end up here."

"Probably as divine punishment," Amy muttered.

"Yeah, but the question is, who's being punished?" Kenji asked. "Everyone else has to share a state with Teller Corcoran, but  _ I _ gotta live in New Jersey. It's bad all around."

Amy snorted. "Since when the hell were  _ you _ funny?"

"I've been like this the whole time, you just never talked to me," Kenji said, shrugging. "Which, y'know. I know what kinda girl you are. I'm not too offended."

"...And just what the hell does that mean?"

"You're a lesbian. I'm a man. I was neither surprised nor offended when I discovered your complete disinterest in me."

"I- that- it-" Amy continued to fumble for words for a few seconds, before shaking her head to clear it. "What makes you think I'm a lesbian?"

"Well, I'm bisexual," Kenji said. "I've just got a sense for these things, y'know? It's called gaydar, but it's really more of a survival mechanism that tells me who's least likely to react poorly when I let slip that I'm not straight, and even who's likely to respond with 'neither am I.' I  _ also _ have developed a sense for determining how receptive someone would be to me flirting with them, and between the two of those, it's not hard for me to tell that you're not interested in men."

"Wait, you concluded that I'm not interested in men because you thought I wouldn't appreciate you hitting on me?" Amy asked.

"That was only one of many factors, most of which are subconscious," Kenji said. "Keep in mind, this wasn't some, like, analysis with a checklist and careful calculations. This was just my intuition."

"Yeah, but your intuition told you that I was a lesbian because I didn't want anything to do with your dick. You're the most hilariously self-centered person I've ever met, and I grew up with Vicky."

"If Victoria Dallon is your frame of reference for self-centered, no  _ wonder _ you're surprised by me," Kenji said. "No, you want self-centered? Go talk to, uh... okay, the only example I can think of who isn't cold in the ground is Eidolon, who probably doesn't have time for some seventh-stringer from New Jersey."

" _ Seventh _ stringer?!" Amy all but yelled, jumping to her feet and standing at her full, unimpressive height of 5'1".

"Amy, I have an eidetic memory and had access to PRT files for several years," Kenji said. "The fact remains that, until I came here and met you myself, I had literally never heard of you."

"And?" Amy asked. "Why the fuck would you? You lived in Texas, probably like a thousand miles away."

"Fifteen hundred, but that's not the point," Kenji said. "Amy, I knew about that healer up in Newark who does some weird shit with cats. I didn't know about you, though, because you're neither novel nor influential. If I'd never met you personally, I'd just write you off as another dime-a-dozen healer who's got maybe six years of service in you before you kick the bucket. And before you say anything, yes, I am aware, that sounds really callous.  _ I get it _ ."

"Speaking of callous..." Amy said. "It just boggles my mind that Vicky is... at  _ all _ interested in you. She told me about what happened that day, in that warehouse. You killed two people and then made a joke out of it."

Kenji inhaled deeply, then exhaled. "Look, Amy. Heroes kill people sometimes. It's an almost inevitable part of the job, if you give a shit about it. Sometimes you need to cut off the limb to save the body. It's not pleasant, or something I enjoy. But it needs doing."

"Nobody ever needs killing," Amy said.

"I sure fucking wish that was true," Kenji said. "It is, unfortunately,  _ not _ true."

"It  _ is _ true, you just don't want to admit it, because nobody wants to admit to the possibility that they're a bad person," Amy said.

"This promises to be a  _ very _ tiresome debate on ethics that I've had a thousand times, so instead I'd like to remind you that I'm here to impersonate a therapist at you," Kenji said. "How about now, do you feel comfortable enough to open up now?"

"How funny that you're only concerned about my well-being once you start losing the argument," Amy said.

"Are you questioning my doctorly authority?" Kenji asked.

"I'm a Quaker, bitch, I don't  _ believe _ in authority."

"Just tell me what's wrong, Amy," Kenji said wearily.

"It's..." Amy inhaled, before exhaling loudly. "I can't do this anymore. Healing is just... I feel like I'm plugging one leak out of a million. I can only save the people I get to, and even then, something else can kill them, no matter what I did. And, Kenji, do you know what someone looks like when they really,  _ really _ need a healer? Because I  _ do _ , and I  _ will _ until the day I  _ die _ , because you never,  _ ever _ forget the first time you see a baby that was born  _ inside out _ .  _ Then _ there's the grown adults that some  _ other _ grown adult turned inside out, because cape stuff goes  _ way _ beyond someone losing an eye! Honestly, Kenji, I'm kinda grateful for you, because  _ you _ at least have the decency to kill your victims instead of turning them into living  _ pretzels _ for me to untangle! That's more courtesy than  _ some _ of the so-called heroes in this town have!

"And those so-called heroes make headlines and get fucking galas thrown every time they so much as scratch their fucking nose!" Amy continued, starting to pace, her voice raising. "I completely eradicated HIV in Brockton Bay, but did anybody notice or care? Nope! It wasn't flashy or glorious or violent or spectacular, so nobody gives a fuck! They don't even  _ fucking _ pay me! I get  _ nothing _ for this! I don't even get the satisfaction of a job well done, because I'm  _ not _ done, and I'll never  _ be  _ done!

"I don't even get my parents telling me I did a good job!" Amy's eyes were starting to turn red. "I don't get my parents doing  _ anything, _ because Mark has clinical depression and doesn't take his fucking meds, and Carol doesn't think she needs to ever actually talk to her daughters or do anything besides feed them! And when she does find time in her oh so ever so busy schedule that's so fucking busy because she fucking made it that way, all of it is either for Mark or for Vicky, because who gives a fuck about Amy, she's adopted, she's not  _ really  _ our child! She's some brown-haired Quaker we've been feeding because we feel bad or something! She's our first charity case, and the one who lives with us!

"The only fucking person in this goddamned family who treats me like I'm family is Vicky, and you! You're fucking! You're taking her away from me!" Amy grabbed Kenji by the shirt, staring up into the featureless black lenses in front of his eyes. She had no such glasses to hide behind, and her tears were on full display as her body began to shake. "She's my sister! Give her back! Take whatever else you want, take our house, take our parents, just give her back! She's all I've got!" She broke the rest of the way down, a bead of snot working its way down her face as her knees buckled and her head dropped.

Kenji quivered for a moment, internally screaming and running through scripts and checklists at light speed, and finally defaulting to what he should've done to begin with.

Amy froze up as his arms wrapped firmly around her, pulling her up and in. He squeezed with the force of a hug long overdue, the first after months of going without, and Amy felt a comforting warmth seep into her from the outside in. She went limp, no longer shaking, and after a while, the tears stopped, and she was left numb, yet oddly comfortable.

"I know how to fix this, Amy," Kenji said, temporarily squeezing a bit harder. "How do you feel about living with me and Lisa?"

Amy looked up at him, confused, but after a few moments understood, and started crying again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Where do you see yourself in five years?"  
> "In a big house, surrounded by kids I took away from their shitty parents."  
> Also, if you're wondering, Marquis was raised as a Quaker, but wasn't much of a believer. When he had a daughter, he had a bit of a personal crisis and decided that perhaps he should try to be a better person for his daughter's sake, and so he started attending meetings regularly, bringing Amy with him.


	27. Carol Dallon Is A Bad Mother

"I can't believe you just... adopted Amy," Vicky said, holding a large and very heavy box as she floated out from the front door to the rented van.

"It needed doing," Kenji said. "By the by, if  _ you _ want out of that house, you're always welcome in my home. Regardless of our relationship status- you having a safe and comfortable home environment is more important than me having a girlfriend."

"I'll keep that in mind," Vicky said. "I'm worried about Mom. She just...  _ let _ you adopt Amy?"

"Yeah, that's really fucking concerning," Kenji said. "I walked in and said 'I'm taking custody of Amy,' and she just immediately said 'alright, sure.' Didn't even listen to  _ why _ I was doing it, she just threw herself at the chance to get rid of Amy." He opened the back of the van, and helped Vicky set the box in place. "Anyway, uh... alright, so, two things that I can just tell you now. Kayden, that interior designer who I've now missed two appointments with because of you?"

Vicky blushed and rubbed at the back of her neck sheepishly. "I suppose I owe you a few favors, don't I?"

"One of them is that I'm gonna have to miss this Friday," Kenji said. "After two missed appointments, I'm not really in a position to tell Kayden I can't make it unless there's a contract involved."

"Wh- b- th-" Vicky squared her shoulders, trying to regain her composure. "Alright, fine, I'll just come with you as your assistant. Unless there's something with Lisa's power that you need that I can't replicate?"

"Uh, it's mostly just standing around and occasionally writing things down on a notepad," Kenji said. "Oh, and looking pretty, but much like breathing, you don't need to be told to do that."

Vicky's blush deepened, and Kenji grinned at her, before the two of them were forced to step aside and let Amy through, so she could put another box in the back.

"What're you two talking about?" Amy asked.

"Scheduling stuff, mostly," Kenji said. "And a bit of flirting."

"Glad I missed it, then," Amy said.

"Stick around a minute, I got something to say and I don't wanna repeat myself," Kenji said. "Amy, just as a fair warning- for a period of anywhere between three and twenty eight days, you  _ will _ feel worse than you did here. That's the stress and trauma finally catching up to you now that your brain isn't repressing it to keep going. Once that period is over, you  _ will _ feel much better than you ever have, but as a fair warning, the next little while is going to suck. A  _ lot _ ."

"...Alright," Amy said, clenching her fists. "I can do it. I lived in this house almost twelve years. I can handle a shitty month."

"By the by, Lisa's got an analytical Thinker power, so she's basically your new therapist," Kenji said. "Presuming that you actually like her as a person."

"She can be a little much sometimes, but..." Amy sighed. "Honestly, I wouldn't want anyone else as a therapist."

"Can you say that again but this time into this tape recorder?" Kenji asked.

"Hell no, that girl's got enough of an ego as it is. I'm gonna go pack one last box. You two stay out of my room until I'm done."

\---

"So how's Amy been holding up?" Vicky asked.

It was Friday. Summer was coming to an end, with Vicky's birthday the upcoming Sunday, and school starting up on Tuesday. Kenji and Vicky were hopeful that the hornet's nest he'd kicked would stop buzzing before too long, on account that homework existed and teachers were surprisingly unsympathetic to 'I had to fight Nazis and they weren't considerate enough to leave me enough time for my homework.' Failing that, Kenji was advertising his services as a tutor once again, and was willing to outright do homework for his favorite client, since her predicament was partially his fault.

"She's staying in Lisa's room, but she rarely  _ leaves _ the room to do anything other than eat or use the bathroom. Lisa assured me that Amy'd brought a TV into there, and was probably playing video games and napping, but all the same... it's a little worrying, but I think she'll be fine," Kenji said. "How about you, how're you holding up?"

"Dad hasn't noticed that Amy's gone yet, and I'm gonna let Mom be the one to tell him," Vicky said. "And then if he asks, I'll just say I thought Mom told him."

"She hasn't?"

"She doesn't tell anyone anything," Vicky said. "Wouldn't be surprised if the Pelhams didn't know you were in town."

"Oh."

"Why 'oh'?"

"Long story, and the apartment's only on the second floor. Plus, it's full of identifying details."

"Still paranoid, huh?" Vicky asked as they walked into the building and up the stairs.

"I've been shot at too much to be any other w- oh god  _ fucking  _ damnit this is a trap, this is  _ why _ I'm paranoid."

"What?" Vicky asked, bumping into Kenji's back when he suddenly stopped walking.

"...Okay, so... Actually, you know what, no. We're not dealing with this. This is officially someone else's fucking problem now." He pulled out his phone, and dialed a number. As soon as it was answered, he rattled off an address and an apartment number. "Krieg. Six armed men in chainmail. There's a balcony, and they're watching the front door. While I've got you here- how've you been? That's good to hear. I'm doing pretty alright myself. See you around." He then hung up, and pocketed his phone. "Alright, well, the authorities have been alerted, and this is no longer my problem. Let's get gone."

"So what next?"

"I dunno, maybe see a movie or something? Or we could just go home, and you could see Amy in person. She misses you."

"Oh shit, Amy lives with you. Fuck, um."

"What?"

"Well, I had an idea, but I absolutely am not going to do that with my sister in the house. Even with your soundproofing trick. Plus, knowing you, you don't even have a bed. You just sleep on the floor like some kinda demon."

"I very much do have a normal bed, because I can't really stash stuff underneath a futon. Speaking of stuff stashed under my bed, I'm gonna have to keep you out of my room for a bit longer, since that's where I'm keeping your birthday present."

"Oooh, right. Can you give me a hint what it is?"

"I think you're going to like it."

"You fucker."

\---

"Amy! Hey, how've you been?"

"Vicky! I missed you!"

Amy committed the cardinal sin of being around cats and got up with Jaspers in her lap, and hugged Vicky tightly, burying her face in Vicky's shoulder.

"I missed you too, Amy. Has Daddy Kenji been good to you?"

"You're the most disgusting human in the world and I hate you," Kenji called out from the living room.

"Amy's been a good little girl, hasn't she?" Lisa chimed in, getting up and leaving the room to give Amy and Vicky some space.

"I'm disowning you," Kenji said.

"Well, he's better than Carol, that's for damn sure," Amy said. "Cooks better, too. Although... I don't know  _ how _ , but he's gotten Jaspers to  _ talk _ ."

" _ Kenji... _ "

"Jaspers just meows in a way that sounds like 'hewwo,'" Kenji said, followed shortly afterwards by Jaspers saying "Hewwo." "See? Deeply unsettling, but otherwise perfectly normal for a cat."

"Also, that one was my fault," Lisa said. "I wanted to see if I could."

"You know what, I'm just gonna. Close this door," Kenji said, getting up and pulling the door to Lisa and Amy's room shut.

"...Anyway, it's... nice, living here," Amy said. "It took some getting used to... could barely sleep, the first night... but... Well, Lisa really cares about me. And Kenji is... weird."

"How so?" Vicky asked, sitting down on the bed where Amy had sat, still holding her sister.

"He's warm and friendly whenever he bothers to actually acknowledge me, but he only does that when I go to grab something to eat." Amy shifted in Vicky's lap, and rested her chin in the crook of Vicky's neck.

"Ames, that's because that's the only time he sees you," Vicky said, rubbing Amy's back. "He told me you're always in here, doing... whatever."

"Yeah, I  _ am _ always in here," Amy said. "What, can he not just poke his head in and say hi every once in a while?"

"He's probably respecting your privacy, Amy," Vicky said. "I'm pretty sure neither of you want him developing a habit of going into your room, since. Y'know." Vicky cleared her throat, and Amy caught her meaning. "Yeah. If you want him to spontaneously pay attention to you, you have to be somewhere he can see you, which isn't in here."

"Okay, but..." Amy glanced at the TV in the corner, then down at the bed. "...Does he really expect me to sit on the floor all day?"

"He absolutely does," Vicky said, recalling every ounce of shit Kenji had given her for not wanting to sit on the floor. "But I'm pretty sure you can convince him to invest in an actual couch, if you try. Trust me, he's a real pushover."

"Vicky, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm  _ also _ a real pushover," Amy said.

"Alright, fine,  _ I'll _ tell him he needs to buy a damn couch already," Vicky said. "Anything else?"

"You need to visit more," Amy said. "...Wait, hang on. Did that motherfucker adopt me just so you'd have a reason to visit more often?"

Vicky blinked a few times, before setting Amy aside on the bed, getting up, and opening the door. "Hey Kenji, I gots a question for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He actually didn't.  
> As for Kenji essentially just calling the cops and noping out of the ambush... I tried writing him actually walking in and dealing with it, but it's much more fitting to the person he's trying to be, as well as the pacing, for him to just make this someone else's problem. It's also funny, although a lot of the humor is implicit; that is, you have to imagine what happens next, and then laugh about that. Which is sometimes funnier than the stuff that's written out for you, but requiring the audience to use their imagination is sometimes unreasonable; I'm the author, and it can be argued that my job is to use my imagination for you.


	28. Chapter 28

"So why is it so important that I keep a journal?" Amy asked, staring at a blank page.

"Because human memory is faulty and unreliable," Kenji said, carefully putting on a tasteful amount of makeup at the table.

He looked like he'd been wearing a full suit earlier, but had dressed down and gotten more comfortable as time went on, and was now left in an untucked, slightly-askew button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of well-fitted black slacks, and black leather dress shoes. His hair looked like a pointy cloud, and he was subtly, pleasantly aromatic. It was a nice change of pace from his usual look, which was 'a teenage boy.'

"And keeping decent records of what happens can help you remember things more accurately," he continued. "It's a nice little quality of life thing, really. Especially for capes, who are doomed to live interesting lives. Since I just recently got Krieg arrested and the Empire kinda fell apart now that Purity and Kaiser are on the run, I'll know what's going on when some snot-nosed second-gen brat pops out of the woodwork squawking about what I did to their dad. Presuming, of course, the kid in question is white."

"Kenji, have you ever considered that the fact so many people want you dead is a sign you're doing something wrong?" Amy asked.

"That's a fair and reasonable point," Kenji said. "However, while I do believe there's a hundred and one  _ good _ reasons to kill someone or just want them dead, I'm willing to acknowledge there's a million and one  _ bad _ reasons for it, too. Someone wanting me dead because I was the reason their dad ended up having to answer for what he's done... that's probably a bad reason. So if someone has a bad reason for wanting me dead, well, that's not  _ my _ fault."

"The more important question is just who the hell else is going to show up wanting you dead," Lisa said.

"I don't fucking know," Kenji said, shrugging helplessly. "The Galveston Kid's parents? Iron Cactus? Stacey Usher? Hell, a compelling argument could be made for Emily Piggot-"

"It's pronounced pig-oh," Amy said.

"There's more than one g, so no it isn't," Kenji said. "Anyway, it's not hard to think of a reason for  _ her _ to try to kill me."

"Are you talking about the local PRT Director? Because she's crippled as hell, dude," Lisa said.

"She's still got eyes and a working trigger finger, doesn't she?" Kenji asked. "Oh and also the entire Brockton Bay PRT at her disposal, including the Protectorate and Wards. Course, due to numbers and protocol, she's not actually allowed to do shit to me if it comes out that I'm Red Wind, because provoking me could feasibly lead to me making an absolutely tremendous mess that will do hideous amounts of collateral damage before anyone manages to stop me. Anyway, we're getting off-track. Amy, write something down."

"Literally nothing interesting happened to me today, is the thing," Amy said.

"You attended your sister's 17th birthday party, where you gave her a wooden Mjolnir you made yourself, and then watched your newly adopted brother give her an actual literal sword," Lisa said flatly. "Then you came home to discover that Jaspers had not only  _ stolen _ one of your vibrators and started playing with it, he also managed to turn it on, draining the battery."

"Yeah, there was  _ plenty _ of interesting stuff that happened today," Kenji said, grinning and scratching Jaspers' head. "Maybe one or two things you'd prefer to forget, though."

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Amy asked, her cheeks heating up.

"Yeah, with your sister," Kenji said, starting to grin, before standing up and stretching. "School's startin' back up  _ real _ soon, and she's worried she's about to have a  _ lot _ less time for me, so..."

"Hey, how about you shut up?" Amy proposed in a panicky sing-song. "Hows about that, hm?"

"Don't worry, I'll spare you the details," Kenji said, walking to the door. "Well, most of 'em. See y'all tomorrow!"

He left, and Amy groaned loudly.

"Why is your brother the worst person in the entire fucking universe?" Amy asked.

"That's just what boys are like," Lisa said, shrugging. "Anyway, moving on... Do you think you could put Jaspers' leg back on? He keeps falling off of shit, and it was endearing at first but now I'm just worried he's going to break his own neck one day."

"I can probably do that, yeah, but I don't really have any raw material to work with," Amy said. "We'd have to settle for just feeding him more for a month or so. Or just going out and buying a pound of bone-in ribeye and doing it in an hour or so."

"An hour?"

"Turning a chunk of dead cow rib into a living cat leg is more than slightly complicated, Lisa. I'm a miracle worker, but I'm not  _ that _ kind of miracle worker."

"Well, what if-" Lisa was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Hang on." She got up and answered the door, and stood face-to-face with what appeared to be some sort of courier. "Yo."

"Package for Kenji Takeuchi here," the courier said.

"He  _ just _ left, but he does live here, so..." Lisa trailed off as the courier handed her the package, then a clipboard. She signed the form saying she'd received the package, handed the clipboard back to him, and then closed the door. "Alright, let's see what's in this."

"Why are you going through your brother's mail?" Amy asked.

"Because I feel like it," Lisa said, cutting the tape and opening the box. "A letter from Roland Stansfield- let's read this one first. Lessee... 'Kenji- I've heard about your recent adoption. While your heart is in the right place, it appears your head is solidly up your own ass-'"

"Dean's dad seriously wrote that?" Amy asked, getting up and ducking behind Lisa to read the letter over her shoulder.

"'Nonetheless, I cannot judge too harshly, as I, a Jewish man, just adopted the son of Max Anders, who the son assures me is Kaiser, the infamous super-Nazi. To help both you and Amy, I have enclosed a copy of a very helpful book that hopefully will not be too difficult a read. Tell Amy and your other sister, Lisa, that I said hello. Dean and Theo also say hello, although Theo has never met any of you. Sincerely, Roland Stansfield.' Alright, let's see... the book is... 'Everything You Need To Know About Parahumans, by Doctor... Teller... Corcoran.'" Lisa stared at the book in her hands, whose cover featured a younger Kenji in a labcoat, smiling at the camera and holding a clipboard. He still had the old burn-scar on his face, although makeup had made it look less like a sign of an old, hideous injury, and more like a visually interesting detail. "...What the fuck."

"So he  _ is _ that Teller Corcoran," Amy muttered.

"The hell does that mean?" Lisa asked. "Did  _ you _ know there was a Doctor Teller Corcoran?"

"Well, yeah, but I just sorta assumed that there were two guys named Teller Corcoran," Amy said. "What, did you not google your brother's real name?"

"First and foremost, Kenji Takeuchi  _ is _ his real name, and second, I didn't bother googling his  _ birth _ name because that's his secret identity, and  _ usually _ a secret identity is something you keep  _ out of the news _ ."

"Well, not him," Amy said. "He's a cornerstone scholar of the absolute fucking clown college of a field that is Parahuman Studies, along with his dad, Dr. Maxwell Corcoran, Dr. William Manton, Dr. Jessica Yamada, and Dr. Samina Mirza. Although... only Yamada and Mirza are still in the public eye. Teller's here, Maxwell is dead according to Teller, and Manton either died or dropped off the face of the earth- if Teller disappeared but is still around, no reason that can't be the case for Manton, either."

"What about Yamada and Mirza?" Lisa asked.

"Yamada is a therapist for the PRT, rotating between Endbringer attack sites and parahuman asylums, and Mirza has been busy trying to combat the absolute flood of unfounded horseshit that gets published as fact in this field," Amy said. "She's, uh... kinda busy. Anyway, Yamada contributed to this book too, I remember that much when Vicky forced me to read it."

"This is just..." Lisa trailed off, staring at the book. "...Okay, well. I'm going to play some fuckin' Mario, and try to avoid thinking about the fact that my adopted brother is in fact a respected scholar and a published author and  _ still acts like that _ ."

"He's sixteen, running from his past, and trying to live a normal life," Amy said flatly. "It doesn't take a Thinker to know why he acts like that. Anyway." Amy stood up, picking up her journal and her pen, and stretched. "I've got school the day after tomorrow, so I need to fix my sleep schedule. Night, Lisa."

"Night, Ames," Lisa said. "I'll talk to him about it tomorrow."

\---

Kenji was walking back to his apartment around midday. Vicky had wanted to have lunch with him, but her parents had called and asked where the hell the two of them were, and so she had to go home. Fortunately, the two of them hadn't gotten up to anything in particular; Vicky had been nervous, and Kenji decided that it could wait, and so the two just cuddled. He was surprised to find that, not only was he not even slightly disappointed, he'd actually still woken up with the usual warmth in his chest, except even stronger.

It only hit him, as he was walking home, that he might've actually fallen in love.

Then it hit him that he hadn't been planning on doing so, that he'd never intended for this to be a serious relationship, and he'd  _ never fucking told Vicky _ . That warmth turned into pain and guilt quite readily.

There was an obvious solution to this problem, which was sitting down with Vicky and talking to her about this, but the two of them had established that, with the coming school year, it could potentially be a  _ very _ long time before she had any time for that.

Then it sank in even further that she wouldn't have much time to spend with him just in general; she was still stuck in the mindset that she  _ had _ to do amazingly well at school to amount to anything, and had loaded herself up with a schedule heftier than the rusted ships clogging up the harbor. He'd tried a little bit to talk her out of it, but he hadn't tried particularly hard. For all that he was Red Wind, and Dr. Corcoran, he  _ wasn't _ her owner. Even if he was certain she was making a mistake, it's her mistake to make.

He stopped in front of the door, and squared his shoulders, fixing a light grin on his face. Now was  _ not _ the time to be openly melancholy. He adjusted his sunglasses, and then walked inside.

"Roland Stansfield mailed you a copy of your own textbook," Lisa said as he walked in.

Kenji snorted, and grinned for real. "Are you serious? That's fucking amazing." He bent over, picking up Jaspers, and rubbed faces with the feline. "...Where the hell did you get this leg, Jaspers? I seem to recall this being missing."

"I had a busy morning," Amy said with a shrug, playing some Demon's Souls.

"No kidding... Well, what else happened while I was out?"

"Nothing much, just some good old-fashioned bonding between friends with homoerotic subtext," Lisa said.

"The best kind," Kenji said, nodding. "Right, well, if y'all will excuse me, I've got to change clothes, because these slacks are in fact the devil."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "How the hell did Teller get a fucking doctorate in Parahuman Studies?" Obviously by publishing a highly influential work or two and being awarded an honorary doctorate for his troubles. Writing the literal book on parahumans(his was not the first textbook on Parahuman Studies, but it is widely regarded as the best, at least for introductory classes) certainly didn't hurt.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry I forgot to post this update for most of a month.


	29. Where The Road Parts

"You're a pretty good sport, Kenji," Amy said, glancing over at the sewing machine set up on the table.

"At least she picked a nice color," Kenji muttered, sewing something. "Meh. Hard part's over. The sewing itself, that's not too bad. It's the measuring and patterning beforehand that's a real pain in the ass. And don't get me  _ started _ on the  _ design _ work."

"How many blowjobs would you say I owe you for this?" Lisa asked.

"You're doing all the cleaning for the next month," Kenji said flatly. "No amount of mediocre head is worth this hassle."

" _ Mediocre?! _ " Lisa asked.

"You have never once in your life done something with the intent of pleasing a man and I don't see you  _ starting _ anytime soon," Kenji said. "There's also the fact that I have a girlfriend, and she  _ probably _ wouldn't be thrilled about me accepting that sort of payment."

"What I don't get is why you can't just  _ buy  _ a dress for the gala," Amy said. Due to the recent collapse of Empire 88, which represented the largest villain organization in the city, a celebratory gala was being thrown at the Forsberg Gallery, a fancy building that everyone but Kenji seemed to think looked fine. "...Or why the hell Kenji knows how to sew in the first place."

"I am a second-generation parahuman raised and trained from birth to be a superhero," Kenji explained, cutting the thread and moving to another seam. "Designing and fabricating my own costumes is something I have been made  _ well _ acquainted with. A dress is, for the most part, the same skill-set, with only a few small differences that are more learning opportunities than actual obstacles."

"That makes sense," Lisa said, "but in all honesty I was prepared to accept that it was just yet another hobby you used to have that you hadn't mentioned until now because you didn't think it was relevant. Like woodcarving."

"...You really shouldn't have told me that, because now I'm going to sneak out at night to take classes on weird-ass skills and then pass it off as just some old hobby of mine that you failed to notice until now." Kenji pulled the dress away from the sewing machine, cut the threads, and tossed it at Lisa. "Go try that on."

\---

"I missed you," Kenji said, smiling warmly at his girlfriend.

"It was a week, Kenji," Vicky said. "If you miss me after only a week, you're probably going to think I died once the semester  _ really _ gets going."

"Before you two lovebirds run off to defile the, uh... pretend I made a witty joke about an unpopular artist, do keep in mind that you're pencilled in to take part in some more official ceremonies," Roland said. "I'll send the two of you a warning via text message beforehand, but I cannot guarantee more than a minute or two of forewarning."

"You don't have to worry about anything," Kenji said. "This entire building is inherently a moodkiller, so I doubt we'll get up to anything messy."

"Good lord, why does every single artist I work with have to tell me how much they hate this building?" Roland asked.

"Do you fucking have eyes, Roland," Kenji said without the upturn that typically indicated a question. "Anyhow, I do still plan on using this time to talk to my girlfriend and spend time with her, so..."

Kenji and Vicky departed, walking in an arbitrary direction and linking arms as they did so.

"...So what exactly do you mean?" Vicky asked. "What's wrong with the Forsberg Gallery?"

"It's fucking ugly and poorly laid-out as an art gallery, that's what's wrong with it," Kenji said. "It looks like a toddler made a skyscraper with stained-glass blocks. It looks like an overbudgeted mall made of technicolor vomit. It looks like it was designed by architecture students who all wanted to be the next Frank Lloyd Wright and couldn't quite agree on how to go about doing so. Also, Wright can kiss my ass."

"...Is there anything that you  _ don't _ have strong opinions on?" Vicky asked.

"I dunno, hunting laws in the pacific northwest?" Kenji said. "But I'm a professional artist. Aesthetic matters, especially concerning one of the two major art galleries in town, are perfectly reasonable things to be opinionated about."

"Okay, fair," Vicky said. "But come on, it's just a building. It's the art inside it that's important, right? Isn't that how artists and, you know, most people in general think?"

"I think that way, but the architect doesn't," Kenji muttered. "It's gaudy and attention-grabbing and distracting. You know, the sort of thing you don't want in the architectural equivalent of a picture frame."

"Do you actually want to complain about how shitty the Forsberg Gallery is, or do you have something else on your mind that's a bit more pressing?" Vicky asked, as they finally found the stairs and headed up to the second floor.

"I do actually want to bitch about it a little more, but I'll move on if you want me to," Kenji said. "Let's see... Oh, I've bought a house. That's a thing that can be talked about."

"I'm not even going to ask where you got the money for that," Vicky said, shaking her head.

"Oh, ye of little faith," Kenji said. "I assure you, with all the paperwork I've had to do, there wasn't a single felony involved in this. No, I just convinced Roland to upgrade my stipend, since I am now technically a master with an apprentice. He's pretty sympathetic to the story of 'I adopted a teenager away from shitty parents,' and he agreed to pretend to believe me."

"Then how the hell did you convince him you needed a house?" Vicky asked.

"Because mine is a household of  _ three _ people, and Roland was well aware that my apartment had  _ two _ bedrooms," Kenji said. "You really shouldn't make people share rooms long-term unless there's rings involved, y'know."

"Sure, but three-bedroom apartments exist," Vicky said. "Why the fuck did he feel the need to buy you a  _ house? _ "

"You might've forgotten that Dean's a good friend of mine, but I haven't, Dean hasn't, and Roland hasn't either," Kenji said.

"Dean never offered to buy  _ me _ a house," Vicky said, folding her arms and huffing as they got to the third floor.

"Yeah, cause you already have one," Kenji said. "Also, been meaning to ask how you feel on the subject of the younger Stansfield. You alright?"

Vicky inhaled sharply through her teeth. "Well... let's just say there's a reason I'm letting you drag me away from the party down below. It's... not that I  _ hate _ the guy... I'm just still mad about how he handled things, like breaking up with me over the phone, telling me I'm shallow and using him despite the fact  _ you _ exist, and then a few weeks later I find out through the grapevine he's gay and he could've just told me  _ that _ , and- okay no I do kinda hate the guy."

"...Well, those are details I wasn't made aware of," Kenji said. "Over the  _ phone? _ Wait, does this have to do with that window repair bill?"

"How'd you know?"

"You're impulsive and violent, and windows are fragile." He sighed, tapping his chin. "...D'you suppose Dean would pay up if I invoiced him for it?"

"Don't you fucking  _ dare _ ."

"It's not about the money, it's about making him realize that he's done you wrong and extracting an apology," Kenji said. "Because, well, it's pretty clear to me that's what happened."

"Look, just... let it drop, okay?"

"Alright. Sorry. It's just... I dunno, you're more forgiving than I am, and no matter how hard I try, I can't see that as anything through a non-cynical lens."

"I get it, just, let me handle this for myself. If I want your help, I'll ask you for it."

"Alright." He coughed, glancing around. "...Wait, where the hell are we?"

"I was following you! Don't you have perfect memory, anyway?"

"I wasn't paying attention!"

The two groaned, and Kenji glanced at the big, open space that was the center of the gallery.

"I know what you're thinking," Vicky said. "The answer is no."

"I can take a fall from this distance without getting hurt. It'd be cool and dramatic, and most importantly you'd have no way to stop me."

"It's cute how you're so arrogant you seem to really believe that."

"I'm a precognitive with control over sound and we're in building designed to distract people," Kenji said. "I can, in fact, get around you if I damn well please."

"I'd love to see you tr- wh-" She turned around, having heard a sound behind her, and then turned back to face Kenji, who wasn't laughing but looked like he wanted to be. "You're an asshole. This is probably the last time we'll get to see each other until Thanksgiving, y'know."

He inhaled sharply, the smile dropping off his face in a heartbeat. "...Yeah. Listen, about that..."

"Hey we should probably go talk to Roland and figure out what we're going to be-"

" _ Vicky _ ," Kenji said. "We're going to have a serious discussion about our relationship  _ right now _ , because the next chance we'll get is in three months, and by the way  _ the fact I won't see you for three months is what I'm upset about _ ."

"It's like three months, you'll be fine," Vicky said.

"I'm complaining about it already, so I very clearly will not be," Kenji said. "I'm not asking you to change any plans that're already locked into place- hell, I'm not sure if I'm asking for anything here. It's just..." He sighed, turning to face her, and removed his glasses. Vicky wasn't sure if she'd ever fully get used to Kenji's eyes; he seemed determined to keep them hidden as often as possible. "Vicky, three months is a long time. You  _ know _ this. You mentioned it earlier. Three months... this'll go beyond just missing each other. Then, after Thanksgiving- during which time you'll be busy with New Wave's charity stuff- there'll be another month apart, then Christmas, then another two and a half months before spring break... I don't think I can do this, Vicky. I love you, but you're going places where I can't follow, and... I think, until you've got free time again-"

"Don't say it," Vicky whispered, barely audible. "Please. Don't."

"You are going where I cannot follow," Kenji repeated. "And I love you, but I think that this, for us, is where the road parts." He reached out, and with inhuman speed she wrapped him in a tight, nearly bone-crushing hug. He hugged back as tightly as he could, resting his chin on her shoulder. "I still love you," he said, using his aerokinesis to form words when his lungs weren't quite up to the task. The words themselves were dry and monotone; it'd been too long since he practiced this trick. "And when you're finally free again, I'll be waiting for you."

"Promise?" she asked.

"I promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Horizon, why did this chapter take you so fucking long to write?" Because I have been throwing it out and starting over again and again and again and again. Originally it was half "Kenji moves into a new house on his own because everyone else is busy, and he monologues about how he got said house," and half "Kenji explains what exactly his deal with the Pelhams is at a housewarming party." Then it became entirely housewarming party with the explanation of how he bought the house relegated to idle chatter. Then it became an Amy-focused chapter. And then, because I was having trouble writing that, I decided to instead write about the gala that surely would've happened when the Empire suddenly imploded and also Lung is gone. Then I decided to have the conversation between Kenji and Vicky be a debate over ethics, but then I realized that hey, maybe I shouldn't write Vicky as having the moral compass of a literal child, and then finally settled on what you just read.
> 
> For those of you who don't think two weeks is an unreasonable time between updates, I'm sorry for making you read all that.


	30. September Ends

"Are you sure a second cat is a good idea right now?" Amy asked as Kenji cuddled a particularly big and fluffy cat. Said cat was probably some sort of Maine Coon or Norwegian Forest Cat, judging by how big it was, and its fur was a smooth, light grey that, in a certain light, could be mistaken for pink.

"The shelter doesn't do takebacks, so even if Roxy here  _ wasn't _ a good idea, I'm quite stuck with her," Kenji said, muffled by a faceful of purring feline fluff. "Besides, Jaspers has been getting energetic lately. I figure a friend might help keep him company."

"I was thinking more along the lines of you trying to replace Vicky with a housecat."

"Don't be ridiculous, Amy. I'm not trying to replace her with a cat." He carefully pulled Roxy off of his face. "Truth is, I've always intended to have a second cat, and now seems like a good time to do that, since now we've got a house instead of a two-bedroom apartment."

"Kenji, you broke up with Vicky literally yesterday."

"Amy, have you considered shutting the fuck up?"

"Why the hell was the shelter open on Labor Day, anyway?"

"The shelter's run by volunteers." Roxy meowed daintily, before hopping out of Kenji's lap and walking over to Amy. "Oh, I see how it is, Roxy."

"Oh, hi there kitty-" Roxy got up on her hind legs, putting her face in Amy's. "Personal space, pl-" Roxy sneezed into Amy's open mouth, then trotted back over to a cackling Kenji. "You little  _ WHORE _ I'm going to gut you like a  _ TROUT! _ "

"I love you, Roxy," Kenji said sweetly, scritching between Roxy's shoulderblades and pulling his hand away with a clump of loose fur attached, while Amy rushed off to the upstairs bathroom, where she kept her mouthwash and a toothbrush. When Amy returned from the bathroom, Kenji had transitioned to playing with Roxy with the use of a stick, a string, and a pink jingly ball. "So how'd you sleep?" Kenji asked, not looking away from Roxy.

"Pretty well, once I  _ did _ fall asleep," Amy said

"Oh? What kept you up?"

"Just... getting used to a new place," Amy said. "Again."

"Ah, right," Kenji muttered. "I've moved around enough that I don't have to get used to a new place before sleeping there, but... I can understand why you'd have trouble. Feel dumb for not realizing it before now."

"Mm."

Amy sat back down on the couch, grabbing the remote and turning on the TV. 

"...Where's Lisa?" Amy asked.

"She's in her room, teleconferencing with heroes to help them with their precautions," Kenji said.

"What precautions?"

"It's right after a big party, so most people would  _ assume _ the heroes are all hungover and tired," Kenji explained. "So, naturally, this is when villains would try something... since they didn't try anything last night, anyhow. At least, not that we're aware of- and Lisa's checked, that was a thing they asked us to do. Anyway, the heroes are all sober and in fighting shape because of Armsmaster's policy of not letting anyone drink in costume, so... yeah, they're currently on tenterhooks."

"Oh," Amy said.

"Yep. So we're on standby in case anyone needs any medical attention. I'm your armed escort, by the way."

"That... makes sense," Amy said. "...Hey, Kenji?"

"Yeah?"

"What the hell is a tenterhook?"

"It's a bent nail hammered into a piece of wood. They used to use it for drying woolen fabric so it wouldn't shrink. This implies tension and waiting, hence the phrase 'on tenterhooks.'"

"Wow." She grabbed a controller and started up Wind Waker. "How the hell do you know that?"

"Lisa said the heroes were on tenterhooks earlier, and I got bored and looked it up. The internet is  _ amazing _ , and I want to dig up my bastard asshole parents and shoot them again for keeping it from me for all these years."

"Wait, you're  _ just _ getting acquainted with the internet?" Amy asked.

"I've gotten very familiar, yes," Kenji said. "Trust me, Lisa's already sprung all the surprises on me. I know what a furry is now, even though I... kinda wish I didn't."

"Yeah, that's about how you're supposed to feel about them," Amy said.

"It's not that I'm disgusted by the idea of people identifying with animals, because people have done that for a very, very,  _ very _ long time," Kenji said. "It's not even weird to me- it's just a thing humans do. The sexual element isn't new either, although it does get a little uncomfortable in places. No, the bad thing is that they're a  _ very _ well-paying market for commissioned artwork."

"...Kenji, no," Amy whispered. "Don't, Kenji, please-"

"I'm an artist, but I'm a  _ professional _ artist, and as a professional, one of my main concerns is  _ making money _ . If I've gotta draw horse dicks to do that, then I'll fucking draw horse dicks."

"Where's your  _ pride? _ " Amy asked.

"Amy, these fuckers make goddamned six figures. You think I'm the kinda fool who gives up on two hundred thousand a year just cause I don't wanna draw slutty catboys in maid outfits?"

"I changed my mind, I want to go back to Carol."

\---

Labor Day passed without complication. The city's cape scene quickly settled into a new routine, unlike the old one; a livelier one, with more of a spring in its step, now that new villains who weren't racist authoritarians could spring up and fill the attention void left by the Empire, and also Lung who everyone forgot about because he wasn't quite as memorably horrible as the Literal Nazis.

On one notable day in late September, Gallant got his ass kicked by a clown.

Clockblocker mocked Gallant publicly and relentlessly for about four days, until the same clown kicked his ass too, at which point he shut up.

Other villains were less funny but still not terrible; a villain named Grue made his name as a cat burglar, using his power of creating a fuckton of smoke to get away stealthily, and earning a pair of nemeses in both Shadow Stalker and Solar, who had decided to stay in Brockton Bay for the school year due to liking Brockton Bay better than Houston. Uber and Leet continued to exist, to the joy of nobody with a conscience, and they mentioned here and there that they were planning some big things for October, which would start as soon as the month began.

September 29th was like any other weekday; Kenji was up in his room, working on commissions, and Lisa was downstairs, playing Halo in the living room. The cats were asleep on the couch near Lisa, and Amy wasn't home yet, because it was still about an hour until noon.

"Damnit!" Kenji yelled, apropo of nothing, followed by the rapid thumping of him sprinting on the wooden floors.

_ Sees a home invasion coming. _

Lisa shook the cats awake and then slipped under the couch. Kenji got to the foot of the stairs right as she did so, followed barely a moment later by the big, shuttered window facing the street bursting open.

"Shit!" a man yelled. "I'm stuck in the- oh fuck that's a gun, please don't-" There was a gunshot. "AAAH!"

"I am entirely too fucking pissed to not shoot you just because you asked nicely," Kenji said, followed by another gunshot, and another man screaming. "I've ruptured several of your internal organs, but you'll live. You make one move or noise I don't like, I'll fix that right quick. You got me?" Evidently they did. "Lisa, you can come out now. Call 911 please. Tell them to send an ambulance and a squad car."

\---

"So apparently, they were going to kidnap you for some weird game thing they had planned involving Glory Girl," Officer Park said. "At least, that's what it sounds like they were rambling about. We didn't even ask them anything, besides 'do you want medical attention.'"

"Kidnapping?" Kenji asked, before glancing at the ambulance. "Is it too late to shoot them again?"

"Yes it is," Park said firmly.

"Damnit," Kenji said.

"If it's any consolation, we're taking precautions here we ordinarily wouldn't," Park said. "We usually stuff these idiots in the drunk tank, but after something like this, we're going to upgrade their security from cardboard box to something that might actually hold them."

"I can do that for you for free," Kenji said.

"Let me guess, you're going to suggest a pine box instead," Park said flatly. "The answer is still no, kid. Trust me, you don't want someone's death on your conscience."

"I think maybe the more important part is the window," Lisa said, trying to get Kenji off of the train of thought that would out him to the police as a murderer. "Anyone know a good glazier?"

"I'll call Mrs. Dallon, she had to replace a window pretty recently," Kenji said. "In the meantime..." He tapped his chin, staring at the broken window. "...well, we'll figure something out."

\---

October passed without incident, by the reckoning of Kenji. There were quite a few incidents for the heroes- Grue broke into the Rig and made off with Armsmaster's supply of tinkertech GPS chips, a supply that was recovered at the apartment of a woman who was quite annoyed that she'd gotten a box of computer chips instead of the pizza she ordered, for one example. But Kenji was more concerned with Roxy and Jaspers getting along with each other, which they seemed to be doing well enough. Besides the cape scene not being his business, the incidents all had a playful air about them; the city's new routine was more along the lines of 'Circus stole an entire cart of fish and then filled the Mayor's car with them' than 'Hookwolf crashed a Bat Mitzvah; 14 dead, 25 wounded.'

It was finally a city Kenji felt like he could retire in.

November, however, was a different story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a Playstation 4 and Bloodborne for my birthday, so. Y'know. That's why I didn't do a birthday bonus update or an April Fool's thing; I was too busy getting my ass beaten by everything that moves in Yharnam.  
> Also, we're entering the second timeskip of Vagrant. If it seems like there's plenty of interesting stuff going on that could be elaborated on, that's because there is, but none of it has anything to do with the protagonist, so it doesn't get more screentime. It could be expanded on later in fun side content that's in, like. Bite-sized chunks that are just fun little things that don't feature Kenji at all. But I think I'll do that later, when I'm wondering "Hrm, what do I do next?" Right now, I kinda want to finish Vagrant(so expect it to take another fucking twenty chapters and three months), because there's a story after that which I haven't told even once yet, and I'm excited to tell it incompetently and then try it again to much better results, because I'm too much of an impatient attention whore to not publish my first draft.  
> However, this time, I'm gonna do something I've never successfully done before: I'm going to actually, like. Write an outline. And even workshop some of these ideas with other people! If you don't mind me messaging you all the time, or spoilers, then feel free to hit me up on Discord. Fair warning, I do expect you to act like a likeable human being,


	31. Toxic

"You've told me before that you haven't gotten sick once since your trigger," Lisa said. "That your power automatically disabled any pathogens that came into contact with you."

"Food poisoning doesn't work that way, Lisa," Kenji said, pouring Amy a small measure of green tea. He wasn't a doctor or an herbalist, but he did know a few things about treating food poisoning. "It's in the name. She doesn't have an infection. She's just poisoned. If it happened to someone else, then she could do something about it. But on herself..."

"Right... here..." Amy got out, before taking the cup from Kenji and draining it. "Urgh."

"Sorry, Ames," Kenji said. "Well, at least you get to stay home today, eh?"

Amy groaned some more.

"You need help getting up?" Lisa asked.

Amy nodded.

\---

"I don't think I need to explain my rationale here," Kenji muttered, setting a pot on a hot plate. "You're a healer. You know how food poisoning is treated, right?"

"...No I don't," Amy said, her voice weak. Vomiting was a tremendous pain in the neck, what with all the acid passing through it.

She was wearing an oversized fluffy bathrobe over her clothes, and seated in a ridiculously big beanbag. They were in the upstairs living area, a large-ish room directly across from the stairs. Kenji's workstation was in here, in a spot where he could get up and rush downstairs as quickly as possible, nevermind the possibility of someone watching him work and witnessing his oh-so-lucrative shame.

Lisa had been sent out to the store to get a box of saltine crackers and a few over-the-counter painkillers that they'd been running low on.

"Oh. Well, until you're confident you can keep food down, you're going to be nibbling on saltine crackers and drinking chicken stock," Kenji said. "Water and salt. You need that  _ way _ more urgently than you need food."

"'s that a fat joke?" Amy growled.

"No, Amy, it's a basic biological reality true of all human beings," Kenji said. "Why in god's name would I make a fat joke at a time like this? Not that there's ever a good time for one, but this is an especially bad one." He filled a plastic cup about halfway with chicken stock, then pulled a footstool over with his foot. "Here, sip this slowly.  _ Slowly _ . Set it down here when you're not drinking it." He nudged the footstool into place beside Amy, then left the room briefly, returning a few moments later with an empty steel bucket, which he set on the other side of the beanbag. "Alright, you've got something to drink and somewhere to puke... Is there anything else you need or want?"

"...A hug would be nice," Amy said.

"Well, if you  _ insist _ ," Kenji said, sounding put upon even as he knelt down and wrapped his arms around Amy, pulling her away from the beanbag and hugging her tightly. He let go after three seconds, the standard length of a typical hug, and then walked over to his workstation and started drawing what Amy could only presume was horse asshole, since she couldn't see the screen.

To Kenji, teenagers were like cats. You fed them, gave them attention when solicited, and you let them have their space at all other times. Things happened on their timetable and their terms, and any attempts to cajole them could only, at best, be patiently tolerated.

To Amy, however, this was just like living with Carol. She wasn't being raised, she was being tolerated. Sat in front of the TV with chicken nuggets and apple juice and not a bit of-

"You okay?"

-Okay, maybe some attention. She withheld a sigh. "I'm fine." Anything she asked for, Kenji would give her, but only to shut her up and make her stop bothering him. That's how it always went.

"You don't sound fine," Kenji said. Sometimes cats were stupid and got mats in their fur, and no matter how much they might indignantly squeak and grumble, you still had to get it out. He got out of his chair, and pulled up a beanbag across from Amy, sitting down and facing her. He didn't bother with sunglasses in his own home, and so Amy got to look into his eyes. "Tell me what's wrong, Amy." His horrifying, blood-red eyes.

"There's nothing wrong," Amy insisted, folding her arms. She kicked herself for not keeping her feelings to herself; on top of being sick and imposing on his time, now she was wasting even more of his time with her emotional bullshit. At some point he'd get sick of her and get rid of her, and Amy knew exactly what the worst thing that could happen was.

"Amy, do you remember our first real conversation?" Kenji asked.

"Yeah," Amy said. "What about it?"

"You said something to the effect of being disappointed that a super mega genius like myself couldn't just monologue at you about your problems," Kenji said. "And I told you that I much preferred to let the person with the problem do all the talking."

"Well, I'm not talking, because there  _ isn't a problem _ ," Amy said, folding her arms.

"There's at least one," Kenji said. "See, I'm about to start monologuing."

"...I'll talk," Amy said quietly.

"Good girl. I'd offer you a piece of chocolate but I don't think that's medically advisable at the moment."

Amy grimaced. "Eugh. Don't remind me."

"...Well, keep talking, Amy," Kenji said. "Or do you want me to monologue at you?"

"Please don't," Amy said. "I just..." She sighed, looking down. "...That was the first hug you gave me in months. This is the first time we've talked for longer than a minute since my birthday, and before that, when you got Roxy. And... I'm grateful you took me in, but... It's just... It feels like you're only doing this because you feel like you  _ have _ to. Like you're still compelled to do what you think a hero would do, even when you try to tell yourself you're retired. And so in practice...

"...in practice, I might as well have just stayed with Carol," Amy concluded, closing her eyes. "And I shouldn't have said all this, because now everything you do to try and make me feel better, it's  _ tainted _ by the knowledge you only did it after I made it a problem, by the fact that once again, someone's only paying the minimum amount of attention to me to make me shut up."

The two sat in silence for a few moments, as Amy's words seeped in.

"...Well, I'm a dumbass," Kenji muttered. "Should've realized your psychology was different from mine the moment you mentioned something I didn't predict, but  _ nooo _ , I had to ignore it and keep going."

"Kenji?"

"I am a self-centered prick with no empathy," Kenji said, tossing his head back. "My understanding of other people's emotions are either a mirror of my own or based on the broad-strokes rules of thumb I was taught to manipulate people. So naturally, when I take a  _ neglected _ child into my home, I expect her to act like an  _ actively abused _ child, and thus don't make any independent moves to interact with her under the auspices of letting you have space and come to trust me on your own terms.

"Well!" He threw his arms up, then dropped them and looked Amy right in the eyes. "We both know how well  _ that _ worked, don't we?"

"Kenji, I-"

"I know, I know, what I just said doesn't fix the problem. Not on its own, it doesn't," Kenji said. "Thing is, Amy, I  _ do _ actually want to talk to you more than I've been talking to you. You seem like an interesting person. At the very least, you and Lisa can put up with each other, and I'm not sure which end of that is the more meaningful one."

"Lisa's kind of an anthropomorphic headache," Amy muttered.

"Oh, she  _ absolutely _ is," Kenji said. "I told her that, back in winter, when she complained about being cold and how I, as a pyrokinetic, had a, quote, patriotic duty to keep a delicate southern belle warm in the harsh New England winter."

"Oh my god," Amy whispered.

"And she said 'thanks, I try,'" Kenji continued.

"We're not even  _ in _ New England," Amy said. "We're very firmly Mid-Atlantic."

"Do you think a sixteen-year-old highschool dropout from San Antonio gives a shit about the intricacies of East Coast geography?" Kenji asked. "Frankly, you should be grateful she even knows what a Quaker is."

"Oh no, I've talked to her enough to learn that she most certainly  _ doesn't _ ," Amy said. "Lord, for as smart as that girl is, she is stupid as hell."

"See? This sort of thing is why I want to talk to you more," Kenji said. "We can, at the very least, commiserate about how much of a royal pain in the ass Lisa is."

"We could, uh, also talk about how cute she is," Amy suggested.

"It's been my experience that people like you get viscerally disgusted when they hear people like me talk about women," Kenji said. "Can I, uh, also mention that a large part in my ineptitude is the deeply held conviction that, as a man, one of my many duties is to not inflict my attention on lesbians when I can possibly avoid it? Because that's a thing I do."

"Well, see, usually I'd let a guy continue believing that because it's kinda true, but..." Amy sighed. "Well, I don't know if I can really judge, but... So far, you've managed to avoid being a fucking freak while talking to me, so, y'know what, I hereby grant you license to bother me as much as you want."

"As much as I want, eh?" Kenji asked, stroking his chin contemplatively.

"...Okay, as much as you want,  _ after _ I take a nap," Amy said. "I'm still sick, y'know."

"Alright, alright," Kenji said. "Would you like another hug?"

"...Yes please," Amy said quietly.

"Alright, tell me when to let go," Kenji said, getting out of his beanbag and scooping Amy up into a cozy, warm hug that felt like home.

\---

"I'm home!" Lisa called out as she walked through the front door. She walked upstairs to find Amy and Kenji asleep together in one of the beanbags, with Kenji clutching Amy like a teddy bear, or perhaps a small domesticated animal. "Aw man, y'all started the cuddle puddle without me. Wake up, shitheads, I need attention."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this should be the last chapter that takes more than a week to write. Should be smooth sailing from here on out.


	32. Yuletide Spirit

"So this is your first time celebrating Christmas at all?" Vicky asked.

"Yeah, but I'm given to understand that this isn't a typical Christmas celebration," Kenji said, looking around at the festival that'd been set up in the streets of downtown. Given that it was Christmas, there wasn't much traffic to worry about disrupting. "Given that I got my invitation from a Jewish man and all."

"Well, it isn't typical of other cities, but Brockton Bay? Yeah, this is pretty much our normal," Vicky said. "Step one is to stop by Yoshida's and get a bag full of East Asian desserts. Do you like dango?" She started walking, and Kenji followed.

"I do, although I'm more partial to mochi and custard tarts," Kenji said. "Although I'll definitely give dango another go- I've only had the stuff from Imperial Dragon, and..."

"Yoshida's does it a lot better," Vicky said firmly. "Although, when the point of reference is Imperial Dragon, pretty much  _ everywhere _ does it better. I bet we could hand my mom a recipe and none of the ingredients and she'd  _ still _ do it better.'

"If she did it at all," Kenji said. "Anyway, I've never been to Yoshida's. What's it like?"

"Well, I thought for the longest time that it was a money-laundering front-"

"Those always have the best food."

"I know! But no, it just wasn't all that popular for some reason. So I was interviewed by a local magazine and mentioned that I really liked their taiyaki, and suddenly they got a  _ huge _ spike in business, and now I get free food. Which was actually really awkward, because I had to start getting it from somewhere else because I feel  _ really bad _ about accepting freebies, and the owner refused to let me pay for my damn food."

"Heavy are the shoulders that wear the cape," Kenji said solemnly.

"I'm not going to let them just give me a two pound bag of dango for free, damnit! This shit costs money!"

"Dango is made of rice flour and bean paste. It costs less than you think."

"Okay yes, but still!" She huffed, folding her arms. "Anyway, how's Amy been doing?"

"Good, good," Kenji said. "We hit a  _ bit _ of an emotional roadbump in early November, but we got through it, and she's getting a lot more love than she did previously."

"Good to hear," Vicky said. "And how're  _ you _ doing?"

"Oh, I'm doing  _ grand _ ," Kenji said. "As much as I love to make fun of New Jersey, and that's a lot, I've gotta admit: life's never been better to me than after I came here." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "And thinking about it, I owe it all to meeting you. Glad I get to see you again, hon."

"I'm gonna miss you when Christmas Break ends..." Vicky muttered as they approached Yoshida's.

\---

"You got the stuff?" Vicky asked as Kenji left the shop.

"I got the stuff," Kenji confirmed, holding up two white paper bags. " _ And _ they took my money."

" _ Nice _ ," Vicky said. "By the way, merry Christmas." She handed Kenji a trade paperback of a superhero comic from Earth Aleph- they weren't particularly popular on Bet anymore, and coincidentally the rest of the comics industry gained a lot of respectability now that they weren't associated with Stan Lee's batshit insanity and Rob Liefeld's inability to draw. "I know we planned on doing gifts tonight, but you were in there for a while, and, well..." She shrugged helplessly.

"God bless local merchants who don't celebrate Christmas," Kenji muttered, trading Vicky's bag of pastries for the book. "Birds of Prey, huh? I remember picking up a few issues from back when Gail Simone first started on it. I also remember liking it, but I stopped reading it because I considered it beneath my dignity to collect individual comics."

"Beneath your dignity?"

"Okay, more like it's expensive and a pain in the ass."

"There we go."

"Oh, and before I forget, thank you very much, darling," Kenji said, before pecking her on the cheek. "That reminds me, I'll have to show you what I've done with the basement later today."

"Did you fill it with bookshelves?" Vicky asked.

"Well, if you want to be reductive, sure," Kenji said. "However, it'd be more accurate to say I've built a library in my basement, complete with its own organizational system that fits my personal needs, which is to say, the main focus of this organizational system is novels, a few comic trade paperbacks, and a few instructional books on carpentry and art. The Dewey Decimal System is, uh...  _ inappropriate _ for this application."

"Why the hell did you  _ organize _ your bookshelf beyond keeping books from the same series next to each other?" Vicky asked.

"It wouldn't be a very good library if you had to canvas every bookshelf to find something, would it?" Kenji asked.

"If you're not willing to look for a book for a half hour, then you didn't really want to read it," Vicky declared.

"You, of all people, should understand the importance of organization and time management. And also organizing books."

"What, do you think I'm some kind of  _ nerd? _ "

"Vicky, we broke up because you took too many high-level classes. I  _ absolutely _ think you're some kind of nerd."

"Oh, like  _ you're _ one to judge,  _ Doctor _ Corcoran."

"First and foremost..."

\---

"So how're you holding up?" Lisa asked.

"Pretty well, all told," Rebecca said. "Better than the poor bastards still in Houston, that's for damn sure. I chatted with an old friend of mine who's still there just this morning. Poor girl."

"Who the hell were you calling on fucking  _ Christmas morning _ ?" Lisa asked. Amy looked like she wanted to say something, but then continued being a wallflower.

"She called me, actually, and she's Korean, so she kinda doesn't celebrate Christmas," Rebecca said. "Anyway, you don't know her and probably don't care. What you  _ do _ care about is learning that the sword of Damocles still  _ absolutely _ hangs over Corky, because not only has Eidolon not gotten over it, he's actually gotten angrier about it. He hit the anger stage of grief pretty early, and doesn't seem like he's gonna budge anytime soon."

"...Well, that's kinda terrifying to think about," Lisa said. "But, oh well. What's life without a little danger?"

"Safe?" Amy suggested. "Secure? Pleasant?"

"Sounds boring," Lisa opined.

"You're a shut-in who's given up on what little superhero-ing you did before and now just writes countless freaky porn novellas just so you can fill a bookshelf with them for shock value," Amy pointed out.

"Yeah, but that isn't boring, that's funny," Lisa said.

"Do I want to know?" Rebecca asked, suddenly tired.

"Absolutely not, but I'm going to tell you anyway," Lisa said.

\---

" _ God, _ I'm  _ so _ glad Amy finally fixed my stupid shitty face," Kenji mumbled around a mouthful of pastries.

"What do you mean?" Vicky asked. "And don't eat them all at once, save room for lunch. You ever had katsudon?"

"I have, and it's amazing," Kenji said, before swallowing. "I'm just wondering- is your gameplan to try to convince me to 'reconnect with my heritage' but primarily in a culinary way so that you can eat East Asian food without having to go to a restaurant for it?"

"Why, Mr. Takeuchi, that sounds suspiciously like an  _ accusation _ ," Vicky said primly.

"I didn't write a groundbreaking academic paper and a wildly popular textbook to be called  _ mister _ ," Kenji said.

"Yeah, yeah,  _ whatever _ . Can we go back to whatever was wrong with your face or whatever it was you were saying?"

"Well, remember how, the second time we met, you got Amy to fix my face? Yeah, up until then I had some pretty severe dietary restrictions because my skull never healed properly from a Striker 7 punching me in the mouth. But now that all those cracks and fractures have healed  _ properly _ , I can eat sweets without feeling a horrible pain in my entire mouth."

"...Oh, that sounds  _ miserable _ ."

"It really fucking was, and considering it was something I was dealing with in addition to puberty and the high expectations the Protectorate put on me  _ and _ living with fucking Powder and Blizzard... honestly, I'm lucky I'm still alive." A shudder ran down his spine. "Lord. Glad  _ that's _ all over with."

"Me too... So, which supervillain was it, do you know?"

"Madcap." Kenji sighed. "I heard that shithead got his ass beat a while back, but I didn't get any details beyond that. I just hope he ended up in the Birdcage."

"It's more that he ended up forced to work for the Protectorate," Vicky said, rubbing the back of her neck. "I heard this kinda second-hand, but the reasoning was that they need all the help they can get, and he never actually  _ killed _ anyone."

"He attacked over three hundred Birdcage transports, and has hospitalized twenty seven heroes," Kenji said bitterly. "And that's not counting the other villains who he sprung from the transports, many of whom  _ did _ kill people, and killed  _ more _ people as a result of him freeing them. The fact that he personally didn't take anyone's life doesn't change any of that."

"Like I said, I heard it second-hand," Vicky said. "I sure as hell didn't have any say in the matter, what with being an unpowered teenager with no relatives in the Protectorate at the time. Anyhow, uh... I heard about this because now we call him Assault, and he's here, in town. Just so you know."

A low, rumbling growl began in Kenji's throat, and he reached into his coat, hand wrapping around the gun she knew he had.

"Kenji,  _ no _ ," Vicky said, grabbing his wrist. "No murder on Christmas."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dewey Decimal System isn't just bad for Kenji's application, it's bad for pretty much any application. It's shit, and it should've followed Dewey to the grave, and if you plan on starting any sort of library with organization and suchlike, please for the love of god use something else. Use the Library Of Congress method, or the Metis system if there's going to be children using it. Just... don't use Dewey Decimal. Please.


	33. The Price Of An Eye

"Apologies for ruining Christmas," Kenji muttered as they descended the staircase into his basement. It really did look like a library; packed with bookshelves, each shelf clearly labeled and organized, although the shelves looked rather bare. He carefully navigated to the shelf designated for superhero comics, and put the book Vicky had given him on the top shelf, leading her to assume he was organizing them alphabetically; assuming a completely even distribution, there was no way in hell a book starting with "B" would end up anywhere other than the first of six shelves.

"Well, to be fair..." Vicky rubbed at the back of her neck. "...Kinda expected this. I mean, telling a former brainwashed supersoldier that the guy who shattered half his skull and freed his kidnapper from prison is in fact in town and hasn't seen any major comeuppance from that or any of the other shit he's pulled...  _ seems _ like a pretty obvious recipe for disaster."

"Okay,  _ yes _ , but I'm supposed to be  _ better _ than that," Kenji said, before taking the book back off the shelf and leading Vicky to the back of the library. "Here, you do the honors."

"What?"

"Look for a big hardback book-"

"I'm sorry, hold that thought. What in god's name is 'oviposition' and why does your sister have an unabridged anthology of it?" Vicky asked.

"Pull it off the shelf and see for yourself," Kenji said with a shrug. "Carefully, though."

Vicky gingerly hooked a fingertip onto the lip formed by the spine of the book extending past the pages, and gently pulled it towards her. She frowned as she heard a click and suddenly encountered much more resistance.

"A bookshelf door? Really?" Vicky asked, pulling the door open. "Well, at least now I can rest easy knowing Lisa Wilbourne's Unabridged Oviposition Anthology is a fake book designed to keep people from touching it." She stepped into the room hidden behind the door, which was another, more comprehensively stocked library. "...Oh. Oh this is..."

"Yeah, no, it's a real-ass book," Kenji said.

"I want to die," Vicky muttered.

"Don't say that where Lisa can hear it," Kenji said. "Anyway, take a seat. I've got a lot that I need to say to  _ someone _ , and... well, frankly, you're the only one I'm comfortable saying it to."

"Well, start talking," Vicky said, sitting down in an overstuffed leather armchair and leaning back.

"...okay, this is... give me a moment." He carefully set the book down again, this time on an end table, and began to pace. "...Okay, first and foremost... I'm not going to kill Madcap. Assault. Whatever the fuck it is people call him these days. I hate him and I want to see him suffer, but I'm not going to kill him. He might've brought out the worst in me, but I ain't like that no more."

"That's good news, but... Why, exactly, do you need to see him suffer?" Vicky asked.

"Four and a half years ago, he shattered half my skull, and in those four and a half years, I have seen exactly zero attempts from him to apologize," Kenji said flatly. "Sorry may not have fixed my broken skull, but it would've at least told me he felt bad about it! I know you may think I'm harsh and unforgiving, but no, my life is just full of shitty people who hurt me and give no indication that they think they've done anything wrong."

"I mean, what did you expect?" Vicky asked. "A christmas card with 'sorry I broke your face' written on the inside?"

"It would have been infinitely better than what I got, which was fucking nothing," Kenji said bitterly. "Be honest with me, Vicky- do you  _ actually _ think it's  _ unreasonable _ to expect an apology from someone when they hurt you? I want you to tell me now so we can clear that up  _ before _ it ruins our relationship."

"Look, it's just..." Vicky trailed off, thinking.

Kenji eventually sat down in the chair opposite her, grabbing the book and opening it up.

"...You're not going to kill him, are you?" Vicky asked after a brief while.

"No," Kenji said, turning the page. "I might not even do anything at all- my due diligence here is scouting him out by proxy of Skiptracer, and figuring out if he's still an enormous shitbird  _ before _ I drain his accounts and burn down his house and also anonymously send his wife forged evidence of him having an affair."

"You said you weren't going to kill him."

"I'm not. However, if he's not suicidal, then we're not even," Kenji said. "How he handles this? That's his problem. Because how I handled him shattering my skull was definitely mine."

"I just- what  _ practical purpose _ does this serve?" Vicky asked. "What is the  _ point _ of fucking up his life now, when he's no more a danger than any other hero?"

"There isn't a practical purpose," Kenji admitted. "But there doesn't  _ fucking _ need to be. This is personal. It's not about saving others, or bettering the world, or even about being a good person. It's about catharsis, because I fucking deserve it. I want my pound of flesh, I want my satisfaction, I want closure, I want to  _ settle this score so Teller Corcoran can finally die _ , and I can  _ finally _ be free of all of Teller's pains and miseries.  _ I want justice _ , o superhero, and after so long being denied it, I will damn well take it myself."

"...Are you done being melodramatic now?" Vicky asked. "'So Teller Corcoran can finally die-' what the  _ fuck _ is that supposed to mean? Talk like a normal person, please and thank you."

"As far as metaphors go, I thought it was pretty straightforward," Kenji said flatly. "But fine, it's Remedial English time, I guess."

"Oh don't give me that attitude, you're the one being a pissy little bitch."

"Well excuse me for reacting poorly to a man who  _ shattered half of my skull _ ."

"Fucking  _ control yourself _ ," Vicky said. "Just  _ think _ about all the ways this could go wrong! If Assault finds out you, Red Wind, did this, then you have to either rely on his silence- which can only be achieved by killing him, because there's no other fucking way to shut him up- or you have to start running and leave behind the life you spent the past year building up for yourself! All over something that happened four years ago!"

"There is no statute of limitations on aggravated assault," Kenji said. "This is not some minor slight, that I can wave away as him not knowing better, or simply not having any better options at the time. This is-"

"A situation that's bringing out the worst in you," Vicky said. "The violent part of you, that wants blood and will find whatever justifications it needs. The part Powder and Blizzard tried to cultivate, the part that you  _ just said _ you wanted to leave behind. Well, you can leave it behind  _ now _ . Recognize that you  _ want _ to hurt Assault for what he's done to you... and then  _ don't _ ."

"Why should I?" Kenji asked.

"Because you're a hero and you're supposed to do the right thing, even when it hurts," Vicky said.

"Funny, Assault is  _ also _ a hero," Kenji said, his voice a little hollow. "You'd think he has a responsibility to do the right thing, too, like... y'know, make amends to the people he's hurt. He hasn't, though. So do these standards of heroism only apply to me? Hm? Does the burden of being the bigger person fall on me and me alone, the abused child? Because thinking about it, that burden  _ actually _ falls on  _ him _ , because  _ he's _ the one who's done me wrong. As for me and what I'm obligated to do... I'm actually not obligated to do anything! Sure, maybe it would be nice and pure and holy of me to forgive and forget, but that doesn't mean I'm committing some great wrong by refusing to do so. I'm taking what is rightfully mine, at the expense of someone who is already obligated to pay for it."

He finally turned the page in his book once more.

"But hey, like I said," he continued, resuming his reading. "I'm only going to take what I'm owed. He'll keep his life, although he probably won't want to. As for getting caught... Do you think I'm some kind of amateur? I can cover my tracks."

"I'm worried, about what this will do to you," Vicky said. "You're the one who told me how badly killing people can mess with your head."

"That doesn't apply here, because I'm not killing anyone," Kenji said. "Just seeking revenge. Sure, maybe after this I'll be more likely to see revenge as a viable option, but that won't be a problem, provided that nobody else comes along and  _ shatters my skull _ ."

"It's not about that, you oblivious idiot, it's about the fact that you're becoming an even  _ more _ violent person!" Vicky all but yelled. "It's about the fact that, for all your talk of deprogramming yourself and getting rid of the prototype super-soldier you were made to be, you're about to embark on a mission of revenge for the sake of revenge! It's about the fact that you're planning on putting Assault in the hospital over a fight you lost four years ago!"

"Do you know what the three years between him and Amy were like?" Kenji asked. "I had more problems than just a bland diet. Anytime I took a hit to the face- which was more often than you might think, because there are plenty of speedsters and flying bricks out there who I can't dodge- I ended up back in the hospital for another surgery that merely patched me up, because whatever the fuck emergency healing Eidolon did to me the first time around kept the doctors from fixing me completely. And in between the punch and the surgery, a period that could sometimes last  _ days _ , my mouth would leak blood, and I wouldn't be able to chew anything.

"I'd get infections regularly, just about every time I went out in the rain and didn't burn myself clean afterwards. It gave me a pavlovian hatred of rain, did you know? Hell, I'd get infections  _ anyway _ if I didn't brush my teeth religiously! And I had to do that  _ gently _ , because my mouth was still busted and if I wasn't gentle I'd start bleeding!

"I woke up in pain every day of my life. I burned through bottles of ibuprofen like a forest fire cause they wouldn't give me anything stronger, and I ended up taking enough that I learned first-hand about the side-effects of it. Switched over to a fifty-fifty mix of aspirin after it gave me a nasty case of diarrhea- did you know ibuprofen can sometimes do that, if you take enough of it?

"And, to add insult to injury, I discovered the hard way, when I was fourteen, that my mouth was so busted I couldn't kiss my damn boyfriend. So no, this isn't over a fight I lost years ago," Kenji said, his eyes literally ablaze. "This is over the three years of my life he all but stole from me. 

"...Oh jesus christ," Vicky whispered. "Okay, fuck what I was saying before- kick his ass, honey. I'm in your corner on this one." She frowned as he turned another page. "So, what's the plan?"

"Don't properly have one yet, but I do know what the next step is," Kenji said. "Skiptracer is going to call up Battery, say she's kinda lonely and wants to chat in-person, and we'll go from there. And  _ from _ there... well, honestly, there's a million ways we could go, but most of them are going to involve bringing Battery in on my secret and getting her to  _ keep  _ that secret, so... That's step two, I suppose? Or step three, and step two is getting Battery close enough that she can be relied upon to keep that secret." He sighed, closing the book and setting it aside. "But, well, step zero is to do christmas-y shit, I guess. C'mon, I bet I've got all the shit to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch."

"Oh hell yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Horizon you said there wouldn't be any more two-week chapters" I know I said that but shut up.  
> Also! In support of my thesis that Worm is only popular because it's the most popular superhero media that isn't comic books which are absolutely fucking impenetrable, I've recently become really into the DC comics universe because of a combination of very good fanfiction and the Injustice tie-in comics, which are a surprising gateway into the DC universe if only because of how often I was asking "who the fuck are these people and where did they come from." The Injustice comics aren't very good, I'll admit, but they're at least engaging. That's more than I can say for some other comics I've tried reading recently.  
> Anyway, what's that paragraph mean? Basically, don't be surprised if I end up switching over to writing DC fanfiction instead of the promised sequel to Vagrant. Because... honestly, I don't care that much about the sequel anymore.


	34. A Good Man Is Hard To Find

"You know what's fucked up?" Lisa asked, before taking a sip of her overpriced coffee.

"Um... a lot of things?" Sam said. It hadn't taken her long to unmask to Skiptracer; poor girl was clearly a lonely teen without any friends. "You're going to have to narrow it down."

"The Gastly line from the original Pokemon games," Lisa said. "See, those three were the  _ only _ ghost-types in Generation 1. So the implication was,  _ every _ Pokemon that died- and maybe even every  _ human _ who died- became a Gastly. So imagine how absolutely  _ fucked up _ a Gengar would've seemed. It's the ultimate evolution of  _ every _ Pokemon- ultimate in the sense that it's the final step. And to evolve into Gengar, you have to  _ trade away _ your Haunter, so not only is it the embodiment of death, it's the embodiment of  _ abandonment _ , too. Gengar is the earthly avatar of pain and suffering."

"...You're right, that  _ was _ fucked up," Sam said. "Why did you tell me that."

"I refuse to be the only person I know who knows this shit," Lisa said primly. "Anyway, what was on your mind before I interrupted with grimdark theory-wanking about a piece of media aimed at children?"

"Mostly just wondering about your living situation," Sam said. "Unless you sign on with the Protectorate full-time, you're kinda out of a job, with how calm Brockton Bay has become."

"Eh, I'm not too worried," Lisa said with a shrug. "I live with my brother, and he's got pretty stable employment that pays pretty well."

"Well, that's good to hear," Sam said. "What sort of work does he do, if that's not too invasive? Accounting? Software development?"

Lisa was tempted to say 'furry porn.' It was funny and not completely untrue. But she  _ did _ have a job to do, and that job came with a list of priorities. Information on Assault was a higher priority than Battery's trust, and mentioning Kenji's furry artwork would turn the conversation in a direction she couldn't work with as easily.

"He's a professional artist," Lisa said. "Got a reputation for hitting deadlines like clockwork, so he gets plenty of work. And he's a  _ professional _ , so he makes damn sure he's paid what he's worth for it. What about yours? Assuming you've got a man in your life in the first place, I know a few girls who don't."

"I'm married," Sam said, showing Lisa her ring. "It's been... oh, about nine months? If I wasn't on the pill, I might be having a kid right about now."

"Nice. What's he do? More importantly, what's he  _ like? _ "

"He's... well, he's Assault," Sam said with a shrug. "That's what he does for a living. And as for what he's  _ like _ ... He's good with kids, but honestly, I think it might be because on the inside, he still  _ is _ a kid. An obnoxious one at times- last summer he superglued the break room refrigerator door shut, and did such a good job that we broke it trying to get it open, and had to buy a new refrigerator- but... Well, I married him, so." Sam shrugged again.

"Being straight sounds exhausting," Lisa said. She was about to remark that if Sam could only say one nice thing about her husband, she shouldn't have married him, then held that back. Sam's friendship wasn't the highest priority, but it still  _ was _ a priority. Still... "Just so you know, if you need help finding yourself a good woman, I know some gals. They'll damn well treat you right."

"Wh- it's not  _ bad _ ," Sam said. "Ethan's a good guy. He just likes to pull obnoxious pranks, even though he told Legend he'd behave except for bothering me."

"You're not exactly inspiring confidence, here," Lisa said. As far as Lisa could tell, good-natured bitching about men, especially husbands and boyfriends, was a common part of straight culture. "At least tell me he does the pranks  _ instead _ of bothering you, rather than  _ in addition to _ ."

"I'd do that, but my poor ceiling would cave in on me in revenge if I lied like that," Sam said. "Did you know that, for april fool's last year, he got a tube of liquid nails or something like that and glued all our furniture to the ceiling?"

"...So why did you marry him again?" Lisa asked.

"So anyway, I've actually got something of a job for you," Sam said, changing the subject. "A missing person case, in fact."

"Well, what's in it for me?" Lisa asked.

"Money, fame, the opportunity for other, potentially  _ more _ lucrative jobs..." Sam said. "...So, mostly money."

"I  _ do _ like money," Lisa said. "But I  _ also _ like  _ numbers _ , and I'm gonna need some of those up-front."

"I, uh... actually don't know how much is a reasonable amount to pay you," Sam said. "I've only done any sort of cape deal with money involved once before, and... well, admittedly, I'm doing this on my own, separate from the Protectorate."

"Hrm... Tell you what, I'll take two thousand dollars up front, and another eight thousand when I'm done," Lisa said.

"Ten th- do you think I'm made of money?" Sam asked, taken aback. "Jesus christ, I'm pretty well-off, but I do  _ not _ have  _ ten thousand dollars _ burning a hole in my pocket!"

"Do you know how long it takes me to find someone?" Lisa asked. "With active capes, it's easy- they make clues all the time, and there's one single website where most of those clues end up, which can easily be scraped and searched. But if you're expecting me to look for someone who  _ isn't _ a cape..."

"No, no, they were a cape," Sam said.

"And what's their name?" Lisa asked.

Sam sighed. "Red Wind."

Lisa blinked a few times. "...Tell you what. I'll do a little looking on my own, then I'll get back to you with an updated price. On the condition you don't tell anyone I did that for you. Deal?"

"Deal," Sam said. "Thanks, Skiptracer."

"Please, call me Lisa," she said. "All my friends do."

\---

"This is tricky," Kenji muttered.

Lisa ignored his rambling(he was going on about opportunity and the conflict between his desire to part her from her money and the fact that she clearly was not rich enough to easily afford the loss), and instead thought over the situation again, hoping she could find a new insight. Unfortunately, meeting Battery wasn't the final clue she needed to nudge the existing ones into place, and that meant she had to come at it from a different angle.

She decided to try working backwards. Whatever his current mania was, it had to originate in his childhood, in some way. A normal man in hiding would be content to ignore this sort of situation, especially after his girlfriend put forth a serious effort to talk him out of it. Ergo, he held a grudge way harder than a normal person. Some of it could be chalked up to a matter of scope; Teller  _ also _ got  _ fucked over _ way harder than a normal person, what with the abusive parents and the kidnappings and the probable brain damage...

...Maybe there were bone shards in his frontal lobe? A modern day Phineas Gage. No, Amy would've mentioned that, and Teller would've, too. When he said 'half of my skull,' he probably meant the  _ lower _ half. No, this was psychological.

He hadn't shown any interest in pursuing Madcap until after learning Madcap hadn't been Birdcaged...

She frowned as she remembered Longshot. The moment he came back into Teller's life, Longshot had been burnt, beaten, and carved up like an animal, while Teller lectured him about how, if Longshot had stayed gone like Teller told him to, he could've lived.

Maybe it was a power thing? Teller  _ was _ something of a pathological narcissist... but there wasn't much to do with that here, either. Maybe Teller just hated being reminded of this sort of thing. Perfect memory didn't mean he kept every memory he ever had at the forefront of his mind all the time, it just meant that when he looked for a certain detail in his memory, it was never corrupted or even missing entirely.

"Are you listening to me?" Kenji asked.

"No, I'm thinking about the logistics of pegging Superman," Lisa lied.

"Oh. Yeah, that'd be tricky," Kenji said. He then began rambling about  _ that _ instead, and Lisa continued to ignore him, trying another angle.

Then it hit her like a truck. He didn't  _ really _ think he was getting revenge, because he refused to accept that the fight was over. For as long as Madcap had gotten the better of him and walked free, it wasn't over, because he refused to accept that he'd lost. An infuriating trait he'd picked up from his childhood, which had served him there well enough by keeping him going through spite when hope had failed him, and allowed him to turn on his pare- no, his  _ keepers _ , and put them out of his misery so that, no matter what else happened, he couldn't be put back there.

Of course, just because Lisa now understood exactly how and why Kenji was like this didn't mean she was totally okay with it. The word "maladaptive" meant something for her, and in the moment it meant that  _ he didn't live there anymore _ . 

Her mouth was already open before she thought about reasons why it shouldn't be. A coward might stop for fear of provoking the ire of a murderous narcissist, but Lisa stopped for fear that he would either take her off this project and get his information elsewhere... or that he might  _ stop _ doing this.

Kenji wasn't doing this for Battery, no, but it could still  _ benefit _ Battery, and considering that she, like a great many straight women, had been tricked into settling for a man she didn't even like, she rather  _ needed _ the help. Lisa thought she deserved that much, at the very least.

It wasn't really  _ using _ Kenji, if this entire thing was his idea to begin with, right?

"You were saying?" Kenji asked.

"Nothing, nothing," Lisa muttered. "Just... thinking. Stuff."

"We should probably get back on-topic soon," Kenji said. "I know we live together and thus have all the time in the world, but all the same, I'd rather we not develop a habit of wasting time."

Lisa nodded, and continued pondering.

Sure, letting him go through with this would be worse for his growth as a person than stopping him, but not  _ that _ much worse, and besides, he'd only been out of that house a year. It makes perfect sense that he'd still have some pretty bad symptoms at this point; people don't recover from abusive childhoods overnight, after all.

It was with that logic in mind that Lisa finally started paying attention again, and actively participated in the planning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This shouldn't have taken this long but it did anyway because I guess I'm just a fucking disaster. Either that, or I'm losing steam as I get into the "oh my god this is going on forever we have like three steps to the end, why aren't we there yet" phase of writing. I guess that's yet another reason to write the ending first. I hereby revoke my promises of "this shouldn't take too much longer, we're past the hard parts!" no, no we are not, this story at this point is a never-ending succession of hard parts and it has been since Summer 2010 ended and it's obnoxious.


	35. Birthday Bash

Sam knocked on the door wearily, despite it not even being noon yet. She'd ridden the high of anger for a while, and now it was starting to wear off.

"Hey Sam," Lisa said as she opened the door, before frowning. "The hell did he do?"

"Today is my birthday," Sam said wearily. "April 19th. I've told him a hundred times. But guess what I woke up to this morning?"

"...Oh no," Lisa muttered, stepping back to allow Sam inside.

"See, I was  _ expecting _ to find my husband still in bed, because it's my birthday and I told him a month ago to schedule a day off for today," Sam said, trudging inside. "I was  _ hoping _ for breakfast in bed, but I wasn't really  _ expecting _ it because he sleeps like a corpse. But, lo and behold, I woke up to an empty bed. It seemed like my hopes had been realized... until I got up to go check on him, and found a note on the fridge saying he had to cover for Triumph, who was attending something or other with his girlfriend. The note then said he made breakfast for me and put it in the fridge, so I  _ opened _ the fridge and received a face-full of condoms filled up with water, which I then had to pick up off the floor and clear out of the refrigerator, during which I discovered that no, he had  _ not _ made me breakfast, and I was an idiot for expecting him to do  _ anything _ for me."

"Oh  _ no _ , honey, I'm  _ so  _ sorry," Lisa said, wrapping Battery in a tight hug. "Do you want me to kick his ass for you?"

"Right now I just want a friend," Sam said.

"Right, right," Lisa muttered. "How about  _ two _ friends?"

"...That'd be nice," Sam said.

"Great. Hey, Kenji, get your ass down here, I need you to bake something nice for the birthday girl!" Lisa turned back to face Sam. "You're not  _ allergic _ to anything, are you?"

"Peanuts."

"No peanuts!" Lisa added as Kenji came down the stairs.

"I heard," Kenji said, before he walked into view.

Sam had heard a brief description of Kenji before- average height, albino, always wearing sunglasses, just turned seventeen. She'd filled in gaps herself- in her head, up until now, he was lanky, like someone had made a man out of twigs and twine, with a prettyboy face and perhaps also a beret. In short, she imagined an artist.

In reality, Kenji Takeuchi was a broad-shouldered man with rugged facial features, a degree of muscle somewhere in the nebulous space between "twig" and "Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson," and a pair of shoulder-mounted cats that seemed quite enamored of him and his dark grey sweater. He looked like he did his grocery shopping at the farmer's market and made his own spaghetti noodles from scratch. He looked like he called his parents every day. He looked like he would happily coach a little league sports team and be the supportive, encouraging father figure all of the kids needed.

Sam quickly ran a mental calculation- twenty divided by two was ten, plus seven was seventeen- and decided that she was in the clear. After all, Ethan wasn't here, and she was  _ very _ mad at him, anyhow.

"Are chocolate chip cookies okay with you?" Kenji asked. His voice was deep and rich like imported European chocolate, and carried with it such warmth that it felt like he'd wrapped a blanket fresh from the dryer around Sam and given her a mug of hot chocolate. Perhaps made  _ with _ said imported European chocolate.

"Uh- oh, yeah, sure," Sam said, blinking a few times, before shaking her head a few times to clear it. "Sorry, you... look different from how I expected."

"I get that a lot," he said with a warm smile and a bit of a chuckle. "Alright, I'll go get the cookies going. Be back in a few minutes. Jaspers, Roxy, down." The cats hopped off his shoulders with reluctance, and while one of them- a gorgeous, almost-pink Maine Coon or something like that- followed after him, the other one- a regular black cat with fur that shone like a mirror- approached Sam, rubbing itself against her leg without hesitation.

"He has that effect on people," Lisa whispered with a wolfish grin as she shut the door. "C'mon, siddown. Up for a round of Mario Kart?"

"I'm already mad at my husband, I don't need to be mad at you, too," Sam said, following Lisa into the living room.

"Mm, fair. Halo, maybe? Oooh, wait, how are you about puzzle games?" Lisa asked. "Portal 2 just came out today, and I hear it has a co-op mode."

"Oh fuck yes, I loved Portal," Sam said, hopping over the back of the couch and grinning.

\---

"You whore!" Sam yelled as her character was crushed to death by spikes.

"Huh, so that's what that does," Lisa said. "Fascinating."

"Lisa, are you bullying the birthday girl?" Kenji asked from the kitchen.

"Yes," Lisa said.

"Fucker," Sam accused.

"Not very much, these days," Lisa said primly. "Been having a bit of a dry spell."

"Oh my god please don't tell me about your sex life," Sam muttered.

"The cookies are ready, so hopefully she'll be too busy stuffing her face to talk about something else of hers getting stuffed," Kenji said, entering the living room with a plate of cookies, rolled-up sleeves, and a cat on his shoulder again.

Sam burst out laughing, then stopped, wondering why the hell she'd lowered herself to laugh at a  _ pun _ . A  _ sex _ pun, at that.

"The real question is whether you can eat them all before Lisa steals them," Kenji said, setting the plate on the coffee table and sitting down next to Lisa. "Don't let the pretty face fool you, she's still the urchin I picked up a year and a half ago, judging by how often she'll look you in the eyes as she steals the food off your plate."

"I don't do that because I used to be poor, I do that because I'm a bitch," Lisa said, before stuffing four entire cookies into her mouth.

\---

"So..." Sam trailed off, unsure of what to say. "...Come here often?"

"Bitch I live here," Kenji said flatly, yanking a choked snort out of Sam. The two of them were standing on the back porch, staring at the backyard that had been revamped, with all the stupid, useless grass replaced with actually useful and appealing plants, like vegetables and flowers. The sun was setting; Sam had been here all day, and enjoyed every minute of it.

She'd sent exactly one text to Ethan in that time, telling him that she was out with friends, wouldn't be back tonight, and no he was not invited. She then ignored her phone, and resumed playing Clue with her old and new friends. Panacea living here was  _ unexpected _ , but not  _ unwelcome _ \- she was a little shy, but very fun once she got going. And given that she was in their house, eating their food, Sam decided that she wasn't going to impose additional hardships like "questions" on these kind souls.

Kenji had been... Pleasant and unpleasant. Pleasant in that he was hilarious, a good host and a better cook, and most importantly a good friend, and  _ un _ pleasant in that she was starting to realize that maybe there were ways relationships started  _ other _ than constant, incessant badgering and cajoling from one specific party who wasn't present.

"Anyhow," Kenji continued, his voice softening, "I wanted to talk to you out here because, well... y'know. Cape shit. And... Do you mind doing a lot of listening? Because I have a  _ lot _ to say."

"Yeah, sure thing," Sam said, taking a seat on the wooden bench and patting the spot beside her. "Although I was under the impression you  _ weren't _ a cape."

"That's because I'm in hiding," Kenji said, sitting down beside her and taking off his sunglasses, before looking her in the eyes. "And before I tell you anything else, I'm going to need your promise that you'll listen to what I have to say, and actually  _ think  _ about  _ why _ I'm in hiding, and my reasons why you shouldn't reveal me. Do I have it?"

"I'll keep your secret, yeah," Sam said, nodding. "But... You're Pretender, aren't you?"

"...Who?" Kenji asked, frowning. "Wait, do you mean that body-snatcher twink from Las Vegas? The tragically straight one?"

"Okay, so you're not Pretender," Sam muttered. "Who are you, then? Hero? Professor Haywire?" She frowned, trying to think of more people. "...Red Wind?"

"There we go," Kenji said. "To tell the truth... I don't want to get into  _ why _ I'm in hiding. Hardly matters to you, does it?"

"I...  _ do _ want to know why, yeah," Sam said.

"Oh, honey," Kenji said, patting her shoulder gently. "No you don't." He took his hand away, then leaned back. "No, what you want to know is why I'm telling you who I really am. See... When I was Red Wind actively, and twelve years old, I was on the Birdcage transport that held Longshot, acting as security. I  _ needed _ to watch him go into the Birdcage to feel safe. But then Madcap showed up. His power is manipulating kinetic energy." Kenji sighed. "It turns out, temperature is merely an expression of kinetic energy. Motherfucker punched me, a  _ twelve year old _ , in the  _ face _ . Shattered my jaw and the lower part of my skull, which never healed right, and made me miserable for years, until I met Panacea and she fixed it."

"Oh god," Sam whispered.

"So, when I found out who Assault used to be, I was, understandably, a little upset," Kenji said. "And where this starts being  _ directly _ relevant to you is because we are  _ both _ very mad at Assault, and would  _ both _ like our pound of flesh. So. You in?"

Sam blinked, gears turning in her head. After a second's thought, she nodded. "I'm in," she said, starting to take off her shirt.

"What the  _ hell _ do you think you're doing," Kenji asked, scooting away from her.

"I- I thought when you said we were getting revenge..." Sam trailed off, glancing down meaningfully at Kenji's lap.

" _ That isn't the pound of flesh I meant _ ," Kenji hissed loudly. "The plan was to remember that felons in custody aren't in any position to dictate terms, and have him transferred somewhere else as punishment duty. Somewhere like, say... the Ellisburg Containment Wall, or perhaps just somewhere in Utah just in general. Or, alternatively, just put in jail where he belongs."

"But..?"

"...But, thinking about it, I actually rather like your plan better."

"Hell yeah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered making the reveal of Kenji's exact mode of revenge be in the next chapter, where he confronts Assault, but then I realized it ran the risk of people thinking Kenji was a rapist. Avoiding that misunderstanding was more important than a dramatic reveal that wouldn't really be that dramatic anyway, since... like, let's be honest, everyone saw "Kenji fucks Battery" coming the moment y'all read the line "Sam quickly ran a mental calculation- twenty divided by two was ten, plus seven was seventeen- and decided that she was in the clear." There is no non-sexual explanation for that line.


	36. Wheels And Motion

(excerpted from the diary of Kenji Takeuchi)

_ 2011, April 19th _

_ Today is the day my plans reached fruition. Now I just have to wait a bit longer for the fruits to ripen, and then I can harvest. _

_ Battery(real name Samantha Reyna nee Jones) arrived this morning at my house. Today was her birthday, and her plan of "take the day off with her husband" fell through- Assault/Madcap(real name Ethan Reyna) decided to go to work and cover for another hero, rather than spend time with his wife. Powder and Blizzard may have been absolutely horrible people, but at least they got the marriage part right, and actually loved each other and enjoyed spending time with one another. Sure, they were horrible people, but for each other, and each other alone, they were perfect. _

_ As for Sam, she very definitely holds no love for her husband, as evidenced by the fact that she's asleep in my bed as I write this(she only went to sleep  _ _ after _ _ telling me her story, from trigger to tonight. I didn't need all that extra reason to hate Assault, but I can still put it to use.). Today was the first time I actually met her and talked to her; I was basically a stranger, and that did not stop her from... well, I'll spare you the details. The lack of a ring doesn't mean that, however; she's just a professional superhero, a profession which makes rings a very, very bad idea. Still, no matter how few symbols of being married she wears, I can't help but think about the fact I've ruined someone's marriage. That I am probably among the worst mistakes this woman has made. _

_ Not to say I haven't made any here, myself. Explaining this to Vicky- and there is no way I can avoid doing that- is going to be... Tricky. We've discussed the topic of dating around while separated, and she did say that since we weren't dating, we could do whatever, but at the same time, we're separated because she doesn't have  _ _ time _ _ to date and thus I am the only one who can actually take advantage of that policy, and I will eat my entire hat collection if she doesn't realize that too. _

_ Besides, I'm fairly certain she meant that I could go back to my ordinary social life, which she thinks consists of one-night stands every three weeks. I'm not sure how to tell her that last summer was incredibly weird for everyone- for myself, for her, for the Nazis, for Dean Stansfield's asshole... _

_ At any rate, I may well have ended a loveless marriage with my penis, and now I'm starting to think this plan was a bad idea, but it's too late to pull out now. I mean back out now. Fuck. This journal entry is cancelled, I'm going to sleep. I'll write the rest of my plan in tomorrow's entry. _

\---

May 4th, unofficial Star Wars day. Kenji was leaning with his back against a safety railing near the edge of the Boardwalk, doodling in his sketchbook. It was 10:30, between the breakfast and lunch rushes, and he was waiting for someone. 

"Heeeey!" Ethan said as he strolled up and stood next to Kenji. "You must be that artist dude Puppy was talkin' about. Heard you wanted to meet some real-life superheroes, see what we're made of."

"Yeah, good to see she followed the script," Kenji said, closing his sketchbook and pocketing it. He looked up, and a quick survey told him there wasn't much of a crowd at the moment. "It's been a while, hasn't it, Madcap? It's me. Red Wind."

"Oh, shit, it  _ has _ been a while," Ethan said. "Man, where've you been? Oh, by the way, those two ribs you broke? They healed just fine."

"...I broke two of your ribs?" Kenji asked, frowning.

"Yeah! You lassoed me from behind as I was leaving and I messed up some kinetic transfer and basically broke both my ribs. Oh, and your lasso, too," Ethan said, before starting to chuckle. "God, that was a  _ serious _ fucking fight. You did  _ not _ go easy on the fire, my dude. And that  _ noise _ you made when I punched you in the face- oh my  _ god _ that was  _ so _ gross, dude." He was outright laughing now, until suddenly he wasn't, because he was too busy choking.

"You underestimate just how  _ fucking _ pissed I am," Kenji growled, before letting go with his aerokinesis and grabbing Ethan by the collar of his shirt. "You think this is a joke? You think this is a goddamned  _ game _ , you prick? You  _ shattered half of my skull _ . In the pursuit of freeing  _ someone who kidnaps children _ from the Birdcage, you hurt a kidnapped child in ways that  _ do not heal _ ."

"...Oh, uh..."

"So no, this isn't so much a social call so much as it is a chewing out," Kenji said, letting go of Ethan. "You ruined years of my life, you know?  _ Years _ of it. Had half a mind to fill your lungs with ether, so you couldn't control your powers, then burn you to death. But my newfound better nature got the best of me, so I decided on a less violent revenge."

"Revenge? That was... uh... Five years ago, right?" Ethan asked.

"Four and two thirds, but I'll concede five because that's actually not the fucking point," Kenji said. "The point is that you never made any effort to make amends. You never apologized. When I told you, you laughed in my face. You're the same asshole who broke my face, and you're going to take your goddamn lumps." He sighed. "Well, that's what I'd say if I hadn't taken my revenge already."

"...I don't  _ feel _ like you nailed me with ether," Ethan muttered. "...Typhoid? The Black Plague? Meningitis?"

"I fucked your wife," Kenji said flatly.

Ethan stared at him, stony-faced. After a few seconds of silence, he finally spoke. "You- you what."

"On her birthday, she came to my house, very dissatisfied with your punk ass," Kenji explained. "It felt poetic to me- how if you hadn't been a huge dick to everyone around you, including your own  _ wife _ , then I wouldn't have been able to hurt you. And it ties back to your past- if you hadn't been a huge dick as Madcap, I wouldn't  _ need _ to hurt you."

"I- No. You're making this up. Trying to rile me up," Ethan said, any humor gone from his voice as he pointed at Kenji.

Kenji turned and started walking away. "I've said all I need to. Call your wife and my bluff, if you'd like. Oh, and Madcap?" Kenji turned his head back, looking over his shoulder at Ethan. "Nobody's ever going to believe you."

Kenji ducked and stepped to the side as Ethan rushed him, and then shot Ethan in the back with a taser.

"Did you know that non-kinetic weapons are both readily available and  _ very _ effective?" Kenji asked, holding down the trigger as he stood over Ethan's body, watching the former villain convulse in pain. "I can kick your ass any day of the week, Madcap. I'm not a twelve year old with a lasso anymore. I'm a grown-ass man with enough tricks up my sleeves to make Batman proud." He frowned, before setting ablaze all the tiny bits of identifying confetti, and then popping the spent cartridge out of the taser, yanking electrodes out of Ethan's back. "Get gone, before you start something I finish over your dead body," Kenji muttered as he tied up the electrodes and stuffed the whole thing in a coat pocket, tracing a five foot arc around Assault as he walked away.

\---

"You know," Kenji said as he walked into his house, "I'm starting to think I'll never get to properly retire."

"Only if you somehow manage to solve all problems everywhere for everyone," Lisa said. "Or you lose your powers and also, I dunno, your hands."

"Are you in touch with the moving team?" Kenji asked.

"Yeah, they got all of Sam's stuff packed up, and she's currently at the Pelham house, relaxing in their guest room," Lisa said. "Dunno why you brought them into this, though."

"If Sam's gonna stay with capes for protection against a potentially violent ex-husband, then New Wave provides an important psychological component," Kenji said. "Assault attacking New Wave would be way more of a problem in the public eye than Assault attacking a rogue who not coincidentally fucked his wife."

"Fair, fair," Lisa said. "But what's the real reason?"

"I don't actually like Sam that much," Kenji said. "Something about her just rubs me the wrong way, and I don't want her in my house."

"No, the  _ real _ reason."

"My house is already an orphanage, it doesn't need to become a women's shelter too."

"I said the  _ real _ reason, Kenji."

"...She snores like a chainsaw and I don't trust the insulation that much."

"Kenji."

"I'm worried she'll latch onto me and that'll cause problems with Vicky, who I would really like to  _ not _ have problems with." Kenji sighed as he took his coat off. "I feel like I've made a mistake with this. Like this is the prelude to something worse. I've heard all sorts of old saws about revenge- dig two graves, and all that jazz. Why did I go through with this?"

"Because you were tremendously pissed off, and now that you've gotten it out of your system you're realizing that you deliberately hurt someone just because you wanted to see them hurt?" Lisa proposed.

"Yeah, probably," Kenji murmured, flopping over the back of the couch.

"Chin up," Lisa said. "Assault is  _ probably _ sending out an urgent memo titled 'Red Wind Is Alive, In Brockton Bay, And He Fucked My Wife.' And nobody will believe him!"

\---

Eidolon stared at his phone, convulsing with rage.  _ Him _ . That motherfucker. He  _ finally _ showed his face again, after all this time, and he did it like  _ this?! _ Not even getting discovered in the midst of doing something heroic...

Eidolon crushed his phone, and stormed out of his office. "Hold all my calls and clear my schedule," he snapped at his secretary. "I have personal business to attend to."

\---

Armsmaster had been rather un-busy recently; with all his newfound free time, he decided that the best thing to do would be to address his greatest weakness as a Tinker, the fact that most of the time, only he could benefit from his technology. Well, with this new Endbringer prediction system, which he'd been refining for months, that was about to change. As of yesterday, the system said they were due for an attack somewhere in the next week or so.

As of today, according to that screeching alarm that his computer produced, they were due for an attack in the next half-hour.

\---

"I hate my life," Kenji said, standing up as the Endbringer sirens sounded. "I hate it, and I want to die, and the good news is, now's as good a chance as I'm going to get anytime soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Eidolon subconsciously controls the Endbringers" is a fairly well-established thing. It's a shame there isn't much fic out there where the Endbringers respond to emotions of his other than inadequacy. In Vagrant, though, I'm making it explicit here and now: this Endbringer attack is because Eidolon is monumentally angry. Literally monumentally- there's going to be a monument because of how fucking pissed Eidolon is right now.


	37. The Ocean Recedes

"With refuge in anonymity taken from me, the only refuge I have left is in audacity," Kenji said in answer. as he carefully packed and strapped pouches to himself, before covering it all with a red duster. "Put more simply, if I want to survive Eidolon finding me, I have to put myself so far in the public eye that he  _ can't _ kill me without severe fallout."

"And what makes you think he won't kill you anyway, and suffer the fallout?" Lisa asked.

"That's not what I think," Kenji said. "That is totally a thing he might do, and if he does, I'm dead.  _ But _ , my choice is to  _ maybe _ die in a way that means backlash and consequences for Eidolon, or  _ definitely _ die in the dark and risk Eidolon and whatever task force he has cleaning up the evidence I left. If New Wave's houses get destroyed in whatever Endbringer attack happens, nobody's going to think it's too unusual. Endbringer attacks tend to destroy buildings a lot, and what Eidolon lacks in long-range Thinker powers, he makes up for in short-range Thinker powers. All of which is something of a moot point considering I'll be  _ dead _ ."

"Which is why you're attending an Endbringer attack for the first time ever," Lisa continued. "Do you think Amy'll be there?"

"In the area, probably. She has a sense of duty, no matter how much she resents it," Kenji said, picking up a red cemedani and tying it around his mouth and nose like a bandanna. He put on a red cowboy hat, leaving little of his head exposed, and finally, pulled on a pair of red gloves. "How do I look?" Red Wind asked.

"Like a shithead," Skiptracer said flatly.

"Perfect. Nobody expects a guy dressed like a cowboy fucked a strawberry to wield the flames of creation." He frowned under his mask. "Hey, Lisa, I know this probably isn't the time, but what would you say is the most dangerous of my three powers?"

"Well, the precognition lets you take down pretty much any non-Brute with a single gunshot," Lisa said, standing up as Kenji walked out of the secret room in the basement where they'd stashed their cape stuff. "The aerokinesis lets you sneak around, distract people, poison them from a distance, or just strangle them. And the pyrokinesis makes you a walking warhead. I guess it depends on the context."

"An Endbringer attack?"

"Definitely the fire. I've seen you casually melt steel. I'm not exactly confident you can kill an Endbringer- as far as I can tell, they straight-up can't be killed. But making them hurt? Making them bleed? Yeah. Yeah, I think you can do that."

"Y'know what?" he asked, grabbing a red umbrella before he stepped out the door. "I don't know if I can or not. You ready to find out?"

\---

"Your fire is absolute horseshit," Lisa said as they flew across town towards the PRT building. It was close to the coast, about a quarter mile to the Protectorate's Rig base provided the forcefield bridge was working. It was the muster point for capes when the Endbringer sirens sounded.

Given that it was raining harder than it'd rained since that freak storm back in August last year, and Teller's aerokinetic bubble was the only thing keeping them dry, Lisa assumed it was Leviathan who would be coming.

"There  _ is _ a reason I call myself pretentious things like the Master of the Eternal Flame, or the Child of Ash, instead of the Master of the Eight Winds or the Prince of Breath," Teller said. "The winds are a mere  _ toy _ before the might of the flames of creation, harnessed in the mode of the Orion Drive by a twink with a fireproof umbrella."

Teller's home was about five miles from the PRT building, but with the power of a baby shower gift he didn't know was from Armsmaster and some creatively manipulated flames, he was capable of flying at speeds more comparable to small aircraft than to a car. Five miles really wasn't that far. Teller and Lisa landed on the roof of the building after only a few minutes of flight.

"Why the  _ fuck _ are you  _ in my city? _ " Armsmaster said angrily as he stormed across the rooftop towards Teller. "How long have you been here?!"

"January 10th, 2010," Teller said with a shrug. "In my defense, the only hell I raised was over the summer, when the junior heroes didn't have as much homework to do."

"So  _ you're _ the one who- pardon me for a moment." Armsmaster's helmet sealed up all the way, an opaque mouth-cover springing in two halves from the sides and meeting in the middle. He then began to scream, very loudly, muffled only a little by the helmet. After a few moments, he stopped screaming, and unsealed his helmet. "When this is over, I want you out of this city."

"Fuck that, I live here," Teller said. "I own a house. I pay taxes."

"You also murder people and commit adultery," Armsmaster said.

"The Nazis started it, and it's not  _ my _ job to check if a girl is single," Teller said. "Consenting and sober, sure, but single? Nope, that's her job."

"Let's not  _ also _ forget  _ this _ -" Armsmaster gestured at the clouds and the rain and the ocean, which was choppier than Gordon Ramsay with a bag of onions and a sharp knife. "-which I can't  _ prove _ is your fault, but probably still  _ is. _ "

"You're right," Teller said. "You  _ can't _ prove this is my fault. Now let's have this argument inside, please, I see lightning forming up in those clouds, and while I'm not  _ afraid _ of lightning, I do still respect its power and ability to destroy." Lisa briefly wondered if Teller had meant to be that obvious, then decided it didn't matter; Armsmaster wouldn't pick up on it anyway.

"Is lightning  _ normal _ for Leviathan attacks?" Lisa asked.

"It happens," Armsmaster said as he led them inside, to the top floor muster point. "The storm clouds always happen, and sometimes storm clouds result in lightning. He can't control lightning, though, only water, and water in the air isn't very conductive, so the lightning mostly strikes tall buildings equipped with lightning rods. However, it's still  _ lightning _ . Be careful."

"If we were going to be careful, we'd be in a shelter, not in the storm," Teller said flatly. "Oh, hey there Gallant. Hold onto this cassette tape for me, will ya?" He produced a tape from under his coat, passing it to the armored knight. "Robocop, you take one too."

"Robocop?" Armsmaster asked, frowning as he accepted a cassette tape and put it into an integrated cassette player in his armor. He really  _ was _ prepared for everything, it seemed.

"Yeah, you look exactly like Robocop," Teller said. "Well, maybe evil Robocop, since you've got the goatee."

"Do I really look like Robocop?" Armsmaster asked, turning to face Dean.

"I- I thought you knew, sir," Dean said.

"Damnit, why didn't Image  _ tell _ me my suit made me look like Robocop?!" Armsmaster yelled. "The hell are we paying them for?"

"What's Robocop mad about this time?" Velocity asked as he stepped out of the elevator.

"Does  _ everyone but me _ know that I look like Robocop?!" Armsmaster shook with impotent rage.

Then Strider entered the room with Chevalier and the rest of Philadelphia's heroes. "Hail and well met, Robocop," Chevalier said in greeting.

Armsmaster sealed his helmet again, and began to scream once more.

"He's not having a good day," Teller said, before wrapping Armsmaster in a hug that, after only a few moments, was heartily reciprocated, as Armsmaster buried his visor in Teller's shoulder. "Alright, so, someone fill me in on the plan."

"Endbringers  _ can _ be hurt, and after a certain amount of damage has been done to them, they turn tail and run, possibly to avoid death, or at the very least sustaining more damage than they can comfortably heal from in six to nine months," Chevalier said. "Anyone who can hurt him is tasked with doing that. Anyone who can contain or corral him with shields does that. Everyone else is on search and rescue, because invariably there will be people outside the shelters when Leviathan arrives, as well as cape casualties that will become fatalities if a Mover doesn't get them to a healer quickly."

"Makes sense," Teller said. "Then, Skiptracer-"

"Yeah, search and rescue, I get it," Lisa said. "I've got a Thinker ability that lets me extrapolate from useful data, so I'm probably more useful with a bunch of screens and speakers and a microphone."

"You, store-brand Hero," Teller said, pointing.

"My name is Kid Win!" he insisted.

"Good lord, they really  _ are _ running out of names for capes," Teller muttered. "Your new job is setting this lass up with a comms terminal of some sort. Hop to it."

"I live here!" he complained even as he complied. "You should know my name, damnit!"

"I'm surprised he listened to you," Chevalier said. "For how long you've been gone, you'd think someone would have some questions."

"I did at first, but he answered them along with ones I didn't think to ask with a cassette tape," Armsmaster said. "Yes, I was listening to that."

"Good man," Teller said. "So you'll stand between me and Eidolon, correct?"

"What kind of leader do you take me for?" Armsmaster asked, affronted. "Dauntless, get over here, I need you to do something for me."

"What's the matter, sir?" Dauntless asked as he squeezed through the growing crowd. "Lord, this place is filling up..."

"When Eidolon arrives, your job is to stand between him and Red Wind," Armsmaster said. "Eidolon has an axe to grind, and you're precious enough that you can remind him of the truce and stand the least chance of getting pulped for your troubles."

"...Sir?" Dauntless asked.

"Was I unclear, Dauntless?" Armsmaster asked.

"No, I just-"

"Then you have your orders, and I have other preparations to make. Dismissed."

"...I don't like this," Dauntless said to Teller as Armsmaster walked off to arrange other things.

"You're a hero," Teller said. "Your address has been 3174 Harm's Way ever since you put on that mask."

"What I don't like is that the harm might be another hero," Dauntless said. "Doesn't help that the hero in question is Eidolon."

"The old saw still cuts," Teller murmured. "Never meet your heroes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Armsmaster may hate Red Wind, but he's not quite as on-edge and freaking out as he was in canon, so he actually, like, gives a shit about Teller living through this.  
> As for why Armsmaster hates Red Wind, it's because Red Wind is well-known for leaving trails of corpses, and any cape-made corpses in Brockton Bay are made Armsmaster's fault because he was supposed to prevent that.


	38. The Ocean Returns

"...and then, if I look like I'm wriggling out of your arms like an unhappy cat, just drop me and fly up and then away as fast as you can. Leviathan's only fast on the ground or in the water; verticality isn't his thing, despite being that big," Teller said as Vicky picked him up in a bridal carry and the air around them began to glow faintly red. "Any questions?

"Yeah, what were you and Alexandria talking about earlier?" Vicky asked, lifting off of the roof.

"She was  _ trying _ to interrogate me, but realized halfway through that I genuinely think I could take her in a fight, and also that, having been a hero since I was ten, I'm pretty immune to the Johnson Treatment."

"The what now."

"That thing tall authoritative assholes love to do, where they loom over you and get in your personal space to intimidate or browbeat you. Named after President Johnson, who was fond of the tactic to the point of commissioning custom desks and chairs on Air Force One so he could deliver it while seated."

"Ah, gotcha." The air around them continued to glow brighter, until the two were surrounded by an orange shell. "Hey, wait a minute, why the hell do you think you can take Alexandria in a fight?"

"I've seen pictures of her drunk."

"And... what, is your plan to embarrass her into submission or something? I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work, Kenji."

"That... no, Vicky, that isn't my plan. My plan involves the most common weak spot of Brutes. Anyway, just... Follow the arrow, Vicky," Teller said, as wisps of yellow-brown, non-glowing gas formed into the shape of an arrow. "And again, thanks for carrying me."

"No problem, hon," Vicky said. "You did a good job explaining why you needed me to. Besides, I'd rather be inside the thirty three foot ball of glowing compressed hydrogen with the person controlling it, since being at a safe distance isn't really an option."

"...Honey, you are  _ also _ fireproof. Every distance is safe distance. That is why you're literally  _ inside _ the ball of compressed hydrogen. Although it's not really a sphere, is it? I wonder what, topologically, it would be considered..."

"Still a sphere, actually, but that's not the point."

"Right. What  _ is _ the point is, shield or no, you  _ might  _ wanna close your eyes soon. Things are about to get very bright in three, two, one..."

\---

Eidolon watched with curiosity as a big orange ball flew through the air towards the coast for a few moments, then returned his attention to the sea. Leviathan would breach any moment now.

There! Leviathan broke through the waves-

-and it was then that his flash-protection UV visor kicked in as Leviathan disappeared in a jet of white-hot oxyhydrogen flame, blasting a hole in the wave front about a hundred feet across as it flash-vaporized the water.

_ "How long has he been able to do that?" _ Alexandria asked, her voice almost a whisper as it came through his earpiece.

"Seven years," Eidolon said, his stomach twisting uncomfortably. "It can't have hurt Leviathan much, though."

_ "Negative on that, Eidolon," _ Legend said.  _ "I can see through that cloud- Leviathan's  _ dripping _ with that ichor stuff. I think Red Wind peeled off his skin like an orange. He's probably... oh, two or so inches shorter now?" _

_ "Problem is, it used up that whole shell of light around him," _ Alexandria said.  _ "Whatever that is..." _

"Hydrogen," Eidolon said. "It's what makes his flames. Cut the chatter, though; I need to focus on stopping the waves."

\---

"Well that's a new one," Teller muttered, spearing a gout of flame through a geyser of water, boiling away the core and redirecting the rest away from him and Vicky. "I don't think he's done  _ that _ before. C'mon, get up high, I want to see if we can hit him with that big burst again."

"How the hell did you block that?" Vicky asked, incredulous as she flew straight up. "No way in hell you just  _ saw it coming _ like that."

"I'm a precog," Teller said. "You know this."

"Don't Endbringers mess with Thinkers in general, but specifically precogs?"

"Only the large-scale ones. Combat thinkers like myself don't get any weird interfer- _ RUN! _ "

Teller separated himself from her with about as much grace as he could muster, orienting himself with surprising speed and kicking off of her hip before unfurling his umbrella and speeding away with a burst of flames. Vicky was already moving upwards even faster, plus a backwards vector, by the time he was airborne.

"Well, I think you got his attention, Kenji," Vicky muttered as Leviathan jumped into the air and took a swipe that Teller barely dodged, before getting more of his face melted off by a painfully-bright gout of flame. Alexandria swooped in to axe-kick Leviathan in the shoulder, sending him back to the ground, where Legend and the other human fighter jets blasted at him with lasers. Leviathan got back up in a twirling motion of his legs reminiscent of a breakdancer, or perhaps a practitioner of capoeira, and lept upward into the sky.

\---

"Oh this is some bullshit right here," Teller muttered as he watched Leviathan climb up through the air, using fliers as stepping stones. His armband called out a few casualties, and one fatality. "Now would be a  _ really _ good time for Scion or the Followers of the Apocalypse to show up..."

He turned back to face where he was going- back out to sea, by the logic that if Leviathan was now  _ following  _ Teller, then Teller would bait him back into the ocean where he'd do less harm. A few moments later he whipped his head back around to look at Leviathan again, and started swearing angrily.

Hydrogen, when burned, combines with oxygen to make water. A sufficiently large hydrogen flame will give off steam instead of smoke. Leviathan was capable of moving very fast in water.

And apparently he could run along steam trails in mid-air, which Teller thought was complete bullshit, but it turned out that Leviathan didn't give a shit what Teller thought.

"I'm going about eighty miles an hour right now, mostly upward, and so therefore my steam trails should be going completely the opposite direction, but at the same speed," Teller muttered as he watched Leviathan run up a steam trail. "So Leviathan is capable of running faster than one sixty miles an hour, plus whatever it's taking for him to overcome gravity... Well, shit. I don't really have room or time to get away, and I don't know if Alexandria or Legend can get him off my tail or not." He glanced around, then returned his eyes to forward, pointed up at the clouds. "Well, we'll just have to see if this particular idea works."

Teller straightened up his track, going straight upwards, and sped up just a little to try to get more distance between him and Leviathan, as well as to heat up his contrails just a bit more. He noticed with delight that Leviathan had been slowly melting his feet off as he ran along the steam trails- they were still, after all, fresh remnants of thousands-of-degrees flames. They glowed the brilliant, blinding white of well-fed hydrogen flame, hot enough to melt steel in an instant.

When he was about a mile up, Teller decided he was high enough for his purposes, and cut the gas, coasting upwards for a good three hundred feet before he formed another hydrogen shell around him, thinner than before but still thick enough for his purposes. He then shot off two more blasts of flame- the first pointed down at Leviathan, and the second pointed up at the clouds.

" _CALL ME ISHMAEL,_ _BITCH!_ " Teller roared as twenty million joules of static electricity discharged themselves through the flame and into Leviathan's head, splitting it open like a watermelon at a Gallagher show.

\---

"So that, right there, is Kenji Takeuchi," Dean said.

"Yep," Vicky said, nodding proudly.

"The guitar tutor and professional painter," Dean continued.

"Mhm."

"And he just hit Leviathan with a lightning bolt."

"Using a lightning rod made out of fire, yes."

"...Are you, perchance, willing to share?"

"Absolutely fucking not."

\---

"Oh joy, the umbrella is conductive," Teller muttered, before getting smacked by a very,  _ very _ angry Leviathan. Teller tried to cushion the blow with an explosion, and it succeeded in that he survived the blow, but he still went flying and, he noticed belatedly, lost both of his arms, the left below the elbow and the right above it. "Oh I am  _ not _ going to survive this."

He reached out with his power to all the air around him, and then, trying to draw upon three hours of practice from five years ago, tried to make it vibrate right. No, not fast enough, faster- there we go.

\---

_ "Team A, go get between Leviathan and Red Wind," _ Dragon said over the intercoms.  _ "Lady Photon, being fastest and closest and already moving to do so, will grab Red Wind." _

"Are you realizing how stupid 'don't get in his way, he looks like he's got this' was?" Lady Photon asked, holding down the push-to-talk button on her armband.

_ "In my defense, Red Wind hit Leviathan with a thermobaric warhead, lured him back out to sea, and then hit him again but this time with a lightning bolt," _ Dragon said.  _ "He did, in fact, look like he had this." _

Lady Photon let go of the button, and grabbed Red Wind around the waist, matching velocity with him before gradually slowing him down. Behind her, she could feel and even see some of the myriad attacks going off. "I'll get you to Panacea real quick, don't worry," she said.

"Shield your back," Red Wind said quietly. "And reach into my right breast pocket. There's. Heat-shrink tourniquets. Put them over my stumps."

"Heat-shrink tourniquets?" Lady Photon asked, pulling a pair of what looked to be silicone camping bowls out of Red Wind's pocket.

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Red Wind said. "And I was right." As soon as she put one on, he flash-fried the stump, shrinking the bowl down to vacuum-seal around his stump. "Leviathan's after me, not Brockton Bay. Don't bring me back into the city- put me down in the Boat Graveyard instead."

"You need a healer, young man," Lady Photon said.

"Then have one meet us at the Boat Graveyard," Red Wind said. "I have a plan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Followers of the Apocalypse, for the purposes of Vagrant, are basically Doctors Without Borders except superheroes and also specifically focused on disaster relief post-Endbringer. They are also, self-consciously, a Fallout reference, and Todd Howard has been trying to sue them ever since Bethesda bought the Fallout IP in 2007. They so far have not responded to his legal summons, and have no intention to do so.  
> I included them because Worm had a strange lack of organizations that went to Endbringer attack sites with the intent to help, and a glut of organizations who went there just to rub dirt in the wound. Also because "Followers of the Apocalypse" is a badass fucking name and I love it.
> 
> Also, no, this WASN'T nearly two weeks late, shut up, I'm busy and also nobody fucking comments here on AO3 so it's really not that much of a priority.


	39. Drowning

"Dragon, put me through to the Followers of the Apocalypse. And get Strider over here," Armsmaster said.

_ "You know I can't do that, Armsmaster," _ Dragon said.  _ "That's illegal." _

"Not under Brockton Bay's Ordinance 137B it isn't," Armsmaster said.

_ "I don't know what that is, Armsmaster. Enlighten me." _

"The full text, as written by myself in ballpoint pen on the back of Ordinance 137, is 'Armsmaster can do whatever he wants,'" Armsmaster said. "I'm using that to make the act of bringing in the Followers entirely my doing, and then shielding myself from the consequences. Put me through."

_ "...If you insist. Strider is inbound." _

"Hey, what's up?" Strider asked, appearing next to Armsmaster with a crack of displaced air and a flash of light.

"I'll give you twenty thousand dollars to teleport to Hyderabad and pick up the Followers of the Apocalypse, and bring them here."

"...Isn't that illegal?"

"It isn't, and if it is, I'm the one who'll get in trouble for it, not you."

"Still..."

A little printer on Armsmaster's forearm dispensed a signed check payable to Strider for twenty thousand dollars. Armsmaster offered it to Strider, his visor affecting a blank stare.

"...Deal."

\---

"Stay with me, Red Wind," Lady Photon said.

"Sorry. Blood loss... still leaking a little..." Teller coughed, before choking briefly on something. "L- Look-"

Lady Photon whipped her head around to look behind her, before crying out in pain as one of Leviathan's newfound geysers shattered her shield, and remnants nailed her in the small of her back. The light went out of her eyes, and her armband announced her as unconscious as they started falling towards the Bay.

"Shit!" Teller said, trying and failing to yell for lack of breath. "Fuck fuck fuck, um...  _ fuck! _ We're not going to make it to the Boat Graveyard unless I improvise... Fuck, I really liked this jacket."

Straining to stay awake, Teller tilted the two of them so that his head was pointed toward the Boat Graveyard, and then used his back as a makeshift Orion shield as he propelled the two of them forward, toward the Boat Graveyard. He couldn't quite stop their downward trajectory, what with his back being too small, and not wanting to fry the nice lady who'd saved his life, but he did slow it down enough that when he crashed into and then through a few softened decks and finally came to a stop on a slightly molten lower deck, it only rattled him a little.

"Urgh..." Lady Photon groaned, moving to push herself up before Teller restrained her from touching the still hot deck. "What happened?"

"You got hit in the back, and I crashed through three decks before landing on this one, which is still hot," Teller said. "Might wanna fly, unless you need your legs for that."

"How hot?"

"I made a dent without breaking any bones," Teller said. "Now please get off of me so I can stand up without dropping you onto hot steel."

She lifted up off of him, her legs limp and useless.

"So, what was your plan?" she asked.

"You're not going to like it," he said, getting up with the ease of a 17 year old master martial artist who was halfway to bleeding out and was missing his arms. "It's- hang on. Did you call for backup?"

"No-"

Strider appeared on the deck about thirty feet away, surrounded by Clockblocker, Gallant, Glory Girl, Panacea, Skiptracer, Flechette, and Othala.

"...Alright, well, fuck it, new plan," Teller muttered, looking like he wished he had hands to rub his temples with. "How many times has it been so far that I failed to best Leviathan?"

"About three or so," Lisa said. "Thermobaric didn't work, running straight up didn't either, and lightning also didn't work. You and Lady Photon's running was sideways, so I'm not counting that as a separate attempt that failed."

"Mmh. Well! Let's see if God thinks you're right," Teller said. "Othala, make Clockblocker invincible."

"I never agreed to-"

"Bitch I was  _ not _ fucking asking," Teller snarled, his voice rattling the hull. "Flechette, I need you here too. You still have that crossbow with the infinite rope supply, right?"

"Yeah, but I  _ also _ can-"

"Don't say it out loud and jinx us," Teller said. "Photon, Strider, take the rest of these folks and get out of here. They don't need to be here, and I don't want to risk them getting killed."

"Like hell we're just gonna leave you here!" Vicky said, folding her arms.

"Strider."

"I don't think he's giving you a choice," Strider said, before disappearing, bringing everyone with him, and leaving Teller alone with Dennis, a lesbian from Massachusetts, and a literal Nazi who'd been browbeaten into cooperation.

"Clockblocker, your job should be obvious. Obvious enough that none of us are going to say it out loud and jinx it," Teller muttered.

"Got it," Dennis said, nodding. "...So, um..."

"So, what?" Teller asked.

"...Come here oft-"

Leviathan came crashing through three decks and the hull, the ocean around him resonating in a gurgling, sickening,  _ deafening  _ roar. The gurgling stopped abruptly, as Dennis casually reached over and poked Leviathan.

"Alright, step two," Teller said. "Flechette, Clockblocker, you two start wrapping Leviathan with a single contiguous cord. I have a quarter mile of twine in my pocket somewhere if you need to use that instead- it should work just fine."

"Then why did you bring up the crossbow?" Flechette asked. "Also, it's not a crossbow, it's an arbalest, and it produces an infinite amount of ch-"

"Details!" Teller said dismissively. "If it can produce enough chain to truss up an Endbringer in the two or so minutes we probably have, then go for it. Otherwise, check the right hip pocket of my coat for the twine."

"If we're going to be freezing the twine, and I'm guessing we are because otherwise no way in hell is twine going to hold Leviathan, then yeah, we really do need to use twine," Dennis said. "My power kinda relies on my perception of things to figure out what counts as a single object to be frozen, and I may or may not have conditioned myself to see chains as a ton of individual objects tangled together because hey, that ended up being really convenient a few times."

"Makes sense..." Flechette said, pulling out a spool of twine, one end of which was tied to a folded up plastic grocery bag. "Hey, so, uh... Once Leviathan is trussed up and the twine is frozen, what's the plan?"

"You'll see," Teller said. "Leave the grocery bag on, it's how we're going to get it around  _ all  _ of him, not just the first five feet."

"I'm five foot six, thank you very much," Flechette said. "And how's a grocery bag going to help us do that?"

The grocery bag suddenly blew ten feet away, before blowing back and wrapping Flechette's arms in five wraps of twine, before coming to rest on Flechette's face.

"...Alright, you've made your point, smartass."

"Do you two know each other?" Dennis asked. "And why hasn't Little Miss Hitler said anything?"

"We met back in 2009, when we tied at darts and then she went out with my ex-girlfriend," Teller said. "Who, coincidentally, is in town, so if you'd like to put in a transfer request..."

"Best fucking wingman in the universe, right here," Flechette said, throwing an arm around Teller as he used a plastic grocery bag and a quarter mile of twine to perform unsafe bondage on a time-frozen Endbringer.

"Dude got me a boyfriend,  _ and _ blew my back out," Dennis said, nodding.

"Oh, and also, Othala isn't saying anything because I'm not letting the air around her vibrate and carry her voice," Teller added. "I have enough reasons to want her dead, what with the violent fascism and all that. I don't need her opening her mouth and adding to the list."

"So we can all be as aggressively queer at her as we'd like, and she can't really say anything about it?" Flechette asked.

"As much as I'd love to rub it in Othala's face that she's subordinate to a queer, crippled, Asian mutt, I think we should maybe remember that we're standing three feet away from fucking Leviathan," Teller said. "Also that I'm trying to perform rope bondage with twine on Godzilla using a plastic bag and my mind because  _ I don't fucking have hands. _ "

"...I hate to ask, but-"

"Yes, I have done bondage before, I know what I'm doing here, and the main challenge  _ isn't _ that Leviathan is thirty feet tall, it's that Leviathan is currently a fucking  _ statue _ . The tail  _ might _ be a bit of an issue, but with how I'm doing the legs, it shouldn't be."

Teller had to strain and do some figuring to wrap Leviathan's upper body and head- his range of direct control was a little over fifteen feet, and he was only five foot eight, whereas Leviathan stood a full 30 feet tall. It was a bit tricky.

"Okay, that...  _ should _ be it," Teller said. "Freeze the twine, Clock."

"Got it," Dennis said.

"Flechette, I have something in my coat lining, near the hem, that I'm going to need you to grab."

Flechette carefully grabbed the back of his duster and pulled it up, before frowning. "Why in god's name did you bring a fucking five-pound stick of dynamite to an Endbringer fight?"

"It was actually for the event that I had to use it to clear some rubble. Now, when Clockblocker  _ unfreezes _ Leviathan-"

"I can't do that," Dennis said. "The freezing lasts a random amount of time. Anywhere between thirty seconds to ten minutes."

"Damnit," Teller muttered.

"My power can cancel out yours," Flechette said. "I just need something else to throw."

"Alright, well, in the pocket next to where the dynamite is, there should be-"

"Oh, a filet knife that you'd put in a tacklebox and go fishing with."

"Eyup."

"That's... Hrm. Why did you have  _ this? _ "

"I ran out of other knives. Alright, so, I'm going to light the fuse at the five second mark, and you throw them when you're ready. I left a big hole in the netting over Levi's belly for this."

"Alright..." Flechette stared up at her target as she held the knife in one hand and the dynamite in the other. "I'm ready. Let's do this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've got one more chapter of Vagrant, then we hit the Epilogue. I'm happy the pacing turned out like this, despite me very clearly having forgotten the lessons I learned about pacing from the last time I did Vagrant.  
> Also, the Followers of the Apocalypse are considered personae non grata by the US government because the US government hates the idea of accepting help from foreign powers, and the Followers don't exactly sit around waiting for government approval before doing their thing.


	40. Ahab's Folly

"Whatever it is you're currently doing, Solar, quit doing it and get over here," Eidolon said.

_ "I haven't answered to you in almost a full year," _ Solar said, her voice strained as it came over the comms.  _ "At the moment, I answer to Armsmaster, or Miss Militia, or right now, even to Skiptracer. Also, more importantly? I am fucking  _ busy _." _

"I'll send Lady Photon to relieve you," Eidolon said. "The information I need is more important than what you're doing."

_ "I am saving lives," _ Solar growled,  _ "If you think you're more important than that, I  _ will _ drop what I'm doing and fly over there, if only to kick your ass." _

“Leviathan isn’t in the city. How, pray tell, are you saving lives?”

_ “Well, when  _ someone _ slammed Leviathan into the street, it broke some underground infrastructure, like power lines and water mains. The hospital nearby is now without power, and if I stop powering their solar panels, then everyone in there on life support is going to die.” _

“That wasn’t me.”

_ “No, that was Alexandria, who in her defense was actually  _ doing  _ something. Look, just ask whatever questions you have, so I can stop talking to you.” _

“Just where did  _ this _ attitude come from?” Eidolon asked. “You used to be a lot less difficult than this.”

_ “You’re not my boss anymore, and also I learned a few things that really didn’t help my opinion of you. Things from Red Wind, if I’m right about you wanting to talk about him.” _

“I was going to ask if you’d had contact with him since he left Houston, but I suppose you did,” Eidolon muttered. “When  _ was _ that contact?”

_ “I don’t remember exact dates, but it was after I came here,” _ Solar said.  _ “Corky and I just had the same idea for getting away from you.” _

“And what lies did he feed you?”

_ “He told me that his parents were abusive, which seemed less like a lie and more like a good explanation for a lot of questions I used to have. You were friends with Powder and Blizzard, surely you can comment on that?” _

“They weren’t,” Eidolon said reflexively.

_ “You sure? Abusers can be real good at hiding their abuse from outsiders. Did you live with them?” _

“Well, no-”

_ “Did you ever ask Teller what happened to his dog?” _

“That golden retriever with the stupid name? No, I assumed it got hit by a car.”

_ “His name was Barktholomew, and a year after Teller got the little mutt, Powder and Blizzard made him kill his own dog. With a knife.” _

“...Horseshit.”

_ “You never noticed Teller avoiding dogs whenever possible? Like he felt guilty about something?” _

“I assumed he was just afraid of them.”

_ “When the hell has Teller Corcoran ever been afraid of anything.” _

\---

Leviathan unfroze as the knife bounced off of him, then the water began to roar again as the dynamite sunk into his belly, and blew a massive chunk of flesh out, creating a cavity one could fit a whole adult into with the aid of only a little duct tape.

"Hah! It worked!" Flechette said.

"No it didn't, he's still alive," Teller said. "And I'm out of dynamite."

"Okay, sure, but we can afford to wait on some more," Flechette said. "He's trapped in-"

The roaring grew louder as Leviathan snapped the twine, breaking Dennis' hold on it, and picked Teller up by the head.

"Hey Flechette? It definitely didn't work," Teller said, before Leviathan threw him through the hull, and followed at a leisurely pace for a thirty foot sea monster.

\---

"That's a distressingly compelling point. But that still doesn't prove anything."

_ "Well, no, nothing would 'prove' it to you, because Powder and Blizzard were your best friends, and your misplaced humanity tells you that your best friends can do no wrong. But they can, and they did. Do you think sons turn on mothers and fathers for no reason? Do you think that Teller killed Powder and Blizzard just because he's crazy? Fact of the matter is, Eidolon, if he was like that, it would've happened long ago, and he wouldn't have been sane and sound enough to prepare beforehand so he could bolt so quickly, and stay hidden in plain sight for a year and a half." _

"We just established that Teller  _ is _ in fact insane," Eidolon said.

_ "No, he's a traumatized child who's had his fear response conditioned out of him by abusive parents trying to craft the perfect supersoldier," _ Solar said.  _ "Do you recall Powder and Blizzard's project proposal with second-generation parahumans?" _

"It was about quantity, not quality," Eidolon said.

_ "And when Blizzard nearly died giving birth, and they accepted that more kids just weren't going to happen, they might have understandably changed their minds, huh? They might've decided to figure out how to get the best bang for their buck in terms of second-gens, and maybe share their methodology when they were certain it worked." _

"They're heroes. Good people."

_ "Someone who knew them better disagreed. Hell, Glory Girl disagrees. Ever heard of her? Big-name local hero? Yeah, she started dating Corky,  _ after _ he told her everything about his parental situation. Thought he was so stable and loving, she got him to adopt her sister out of her shitty home. And that's not the only person he's adopted, y'know. He's the sole breadwinner in that household, and he lets them live there for no reason beyond the fact they need to live  _ somewhere _. He doesn't do cape shit anymore, it's not like he's got a strategic motive." _

"We're done here," Eidolon said, closing the channel.

_ "I can radiate at any wavelength I want,"  _ Solar said.  _ "He has cats now, named Jasp-" _

Eidolon turned off his earpiece. This quickly proved to be a mistake, because now he was stewing in his own angry juices, and Solar wasn't the only person with something to say.

_ "You're a fucking moron, David," _ that treasonous bastard, his self-doubt, said.  _ "Teller's always hated you, and you hate the idea that it was your fault he hated you." _

"Shut up," he growled quietly.

_ "You don't exactly have great taste in friends, you know? The Witch Doctor has that basement full of human experiments, the Number Man used to be a serial killer for no greater reason than tremendous social anxiety that left him unable to say no to people; it's not even a little surprising that Powder and Blizzard were child abusers." _

"Shut  _ up! _ "

_ "You're only saying that because you don't want to think about the fact that something was happening that you could've stopped, and you didn't, because you thought it wasn't your business. Newsflash, asshole! You're a fucking superhero! It's  _ always _ your fucking business!" _

Eidolon screamed inarticulately, before flying toward the Boat Graveyard.

\---

"Out of my goddamn way," Vicky growled, not yet cranking up her aura. She had a plan.

"Get back to your post," Alexandria said, folding her arms. "You have healers to guard."

"I have a monster to fight and a boyfriend to save," Vicky said. "I'm not going to ask again- out of my way, or else."

"Or else  _ what? _ "

"Or else  _ this _ ."

It'd taken an embarrassingly long time for Vicky to figure out what a Brute's "most common weakness" was. It wasn't in any manuals or handbooks she'd found, and so she wondered what Teller and Teller alone could do that might be a weakness to most Brutes, that nobody else was likely to discover.

The answer she came up with, that seemed to pan out, was 'chemical weapons.' Given that conflicts these days primarily consisted of between two and a dozen capes with maybe a few more armed baseliners as backup, chemical weapons were just impractical in the modern day. Impractical, unless you controlled the winds that carried them.

Or, alternatively, nailed Alexandria with a can of Brute mace while artificial fear forced her eyes unnaturally open.

" _ AAAAAAIEEEEUUGGHHH! _ "

Vicky flew around Alexandria, halberd in hand- she'd said one word to Armsmaster, and he immediately handed one over. Supposedly, it was a prototype, with only three pieces of tech in it- a power source, a teleporter(with a fingerless gauntlet currently strapped to Vicky's right hand which would teleport the halberd back into her grip), and, the technology actually being tested:

A nanoassembler that created some sort of bullshit nanotechnology that broke things down on a molecular level. How,  _ precisely _ , that functioned was beyond her, and she didn't care. She just needed something to hit Leviathan with that would do more damage than her fist.

"I see you, Leviathan," she heard Teller yell, his voice amplified by his aerokinesis. He was halfway upright, on the top deck of a ship, still bleeding out from his arms and back. "You are no mean beast- you are a true  _ monster _ , with an appetite for  _ death _ and  _ destruction _ and  _ suffering _ . A poor Moby-Dick you therefore make, but for you I shall furnish a fine Ahab!"

Leviathan's outer skin was starting to grow back, as was his head and bits of his belly. The skin was growing back a translucent aquamarine rather than the usual cerulean, and the wounds were scabbing over with stark white. As Teller bled red onto the deck, Leviathan bled inky black, tracing lines down his chest and face.

"Towards you I still step, monster who destroys but never conquers, to the last I grapple with you, from Hell's heart I strike at you,  _ for hate's sake I spit my last breath at you! _ "

Vicky took that as her cue to strike, throwing the halberd like a harpoon and skewering Leviathan's arm, pinning it to his abdomen.

"Ha  _ ha! _ Blood and thunder, lass!" Teller yelled. "Grab your harpoon quick, though- I'm not about to sit this one out either!"

Vicky recalled the halberd to her hand just in time for Teller to try, once again, to fry Leviathan like a bad hash brown. Once again, it mostly served to slim down Leviathan a little more, and make him very, very angry. It wasn't all for naught, though- steam was all but useless to Leviathan, and his water shadow was being vaporized as it came out, leaving him disabled

Vicky charged in again, trusting Teller to cut the flame around her, and with a whirling upward swing, managed to lop off Leviathan's arm just below the shoulder, provoking a great roar from the ocean around her, before he struck her with his remaining arm, knocking her into Teller(which lowered her shield  _ again _ ), and knocking the halberd out of her hand.

Vicky closed her eyes and braced for the blow that would do her in, but it only just grazed her- taking her eye, sure, but not the rest of her head. She'd need an eyepatch, not a pine box and a priest.

She opened her remaining eye, and saw Eidolon fighting off a clearly startled Leviathan, who decided that now was a good time to bolt.

"...Thank  _ fuck _ that's over," Teller muttered behind her, followed by the loud thump of him collapsing face-first on the deck. Vicky carefully checked- he was alive, just passed out from blood loss. It may be the missing eye talking, but joining him seemed  _ very _ appealing right about now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Finally it's over," Teller says, thinking that I'm going to stop writing him having adventures and he can just live his life and play with his cats.  
> "Finally it's over," Teller says, being dead fucking wrong.


	41. EPILOGUE

Teller woke up groaning, and from the faint smell of steel and acid around him, he was probably in a hospital. This bed  _ definitely _ wasn't his own, that was for certain, because if it was, then there would be a heavy black furball on his chest yelling at him for food or attention or something like that.

"You're awake!"

His eyes snapped open, and he laid eyes on Vicky. A grin spread across his face without any input, and he sat up to pull her into a tight hug. She had an eyepatch now, and a wicked-looking scar like something with claws the size of her forearm was responsible for the eyepatch.

It wasn't hard to figure out where that had come from, and considering the existence of one Amelia Dallon, it was obvious that it was only there because Vicky decided to  _ keep _ it. A permanent reminder of her valor- or, if he allowed himself the indulgence, perhaps a symbol of devotion, a wordless 'I fought Leviathan to save my boyfriend and all I got was this lousy eyepatch.' Well, no, she also got a hug, which seemed about to turn into a desperate, passionate, 'I can't believe we're still alive' kiss.

"Hey, hey, hey, cool your damn jets," Lisa said. She was on the other side of the hospital bed, from the sounds of things. "You two can do that when we get home. Horny freaks."

"That's right, we  _ can _ ," Vicky said. "We can do a lot more, actually. In the same house you live in, where you'll have no choice but to put up with the noise."

"I have earplugs and a soundproofed room," Lisa said flatly. "Now, Kenji, if you'd take a close look at your arms and tell me what's wrong?"

Teller reluctantly let go of his girlfriend with his left arm, and pulled it back into his view. "...Huh. They're prosthetics. That look like they were made by Apple."

"Yeah, Amy's been busy, and Scapegoat refuses to give up his own arms," Lisa said. "Now, the good news is, Ouroboros heals a lot faster than Amy does, and she's willing to put your arms back on now that you're awake and can give informed consent."

"I can wait," Teller said. "I know why she needs that permission... and also, quite frankly, fuck her. She didn't necessarily wrong me to the point of seeking vengeance, but I still don't like her."

"I, um... don't know what's going on," Vicky admitted. "I've been here pretty much ever since we got here, because I didn't lose my whole-ass eye to Leviathan in the process of saving your ass just to let Eidolon or Alexandria or some other asshole come in here and kill you."

Teller briefly considered the logistics of gold mining and gem cutting, and then arrived at an excellent question he should ask anyway.

"How, uh... How long  _ was _ I out, anyhow?" Teller asked.

"Leviathan left at about 1:30 PM on Tuesday, May 4th," Vicky said. "It is, currently, 4:15 PM of Wednesday, May 5th."

"Oh, just a day," Teller muttered. "That's not too bad."

"There were some sedatives involved," Vicky added. "Y'know, to install the prosthetics properly, and also the IVs that are no longer in, because now you've got as much blood as you need."

"Well, I'm glad  _ I'm _ fine," Teller muttered. "How about you?"

"Oh, I'm fine," Vicky said, waving dismissively. "Amy actually grew my eye back, it's fine now, but when life gives you an opportunity to wear an eyepatch, you  _ have _ to wear the eyepatch. It's like a law of the universe."

"The eyepatch is made of a sorta see-through fabric," Lisa added. "So it's not like she doesn't have any depth perception."

"That too," Vicky allowed.

"Alright, well, I'm awake, and also I live with Amy, so... Can I go home now?" Teller asked. "I'm pretty sure- yep, still have functioning legs."

"Armsmaster wants to talk to you before you go, actually."

"Is it good news?"

"I don't know, I've only left this room to use the bathroom," Vicky said with a shrug. "Lisa?"

"Good news, mostly," Lisa confirmed. "A lot of it's happened behind closed doors, so I'm a  _ little _ foggy on the details, but I'm pretty sure that you get to go home and keep living your life. The fact that it's Armsmaster talking to you is probably a good sign, too."

"Alright, well... Can you go find him? I'd like to get this over with quickly. In the meantime, I have to piss like a racehorse."

\---

"A lot has happened in the last twenty six hours," Armsmaster said. "Er, twenty seven. Details. Glory Girl, would you mind informing us what, exactly, you did during the Leviathan fight that was so noteworthy?"

"Alexandria tried to order me around, so I used my aura to make her open her eyes real wide before I maced her with Brute mace," Vicky said.

"Brute mace," Teller said. "Ten times stronger than normal mace Brute mace. Always either massive overkill or completely useless Brute mace."

"Eyup."

"And you figured out that worked just from me telling you that Alexandria  _ did  _ have a weakness that could be exploited by humans."

"Mhm. Took a while, but I did it."

"Have I mentioned that you're very smart and I love you?"

"Mmmaybe, but I could stand to hear it a little more often."

"If we can move on?" Armsmaster asked.

"Grudgingly, but yes," Teller allowed.

"There has been a reorganization of the Protectorate," Armsmaster said. "An Internal Affairs department has been formed, which I am now part of, alongside Chevalier, Revel, and Doc Bell."

"Who the fuck is Doc Bell?" Lisa asked.

"A Thinker from Seattle," Armsmaster explained. "Known for being difficult to work with due to his powers, which make him impossible to successfully lie to, and his strong moral compass, which is why people with poor moral compasses try lying to him in the first place. He wasn't able to join us for our inaugural operation, but I'm sure he'll be there for the next one."

"Tell me a little more about this 'inaugural operation' of yours," Teller said. "It seems... personally relevant to me."

"That's because it is," Armsmaster said. "As it turns out, you can't personally kill nearly fifty people and then bring an Endbringer down on a city without attracting attention. After a bit of interrogation and deliberation, Eidolon is no longer the leader of the Houston Protectorate, and has about as much authority as Velocity."

"Who?"

"Exactly. Eidolon was not the only person we investigated, however. Legend and Alexandria were also put on trial. This isn't the only example, but it is the one you'll know- are you aware of Assault's circumstances?"

"Are you telling me there's more instances of that horseshit?" Teller asked.

"So now Myrrdin is the leader of the Protectorate, and the major headquarters are being moved to Chicago, where Myrrdin resides. Legend will remain in New York, but he absolutely will not be trusted with authority anymore, or in fact ever again, because there are hundreds of capes with administrative talents who did  _ not _ illegally press-gang criminals into service while simultaneously making concessions that allowed said criminals to abuse their new positions because as it turns out, supervillains tend to be shitty people who don't respect boundaries."

"What's happening to Assault?"

"At the moment, he's being moved out of Brockton Bay to the middle of nowhere on punishment duty, and the moment his supervisor complains about him, we're going to throw his ass in the Birdcage. Also, he's on track to be slapped with a court-issue restraining order that, if violated, is grounds for either Red Wind or Battery to kill him."

"...What constitutes a violation?" Teller asked.

"If you can see him, he's too close," Armsmaster said. "...As long as you remain in the states of New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, or Texas. Texas was added to the list in the event you decide to return to Houston to collect things you left behind, or something along those lines."

"What about Brockton Bay's Protectorate?" Vicky asked. "Who's gonna lead them now?"

"Battery," Armsmaster said. "She's got a good work ethic, along with a familiarity with literally all of the paperwork the position entails."

"And Alexandria? What did you find with her?" Lisa asked.

"We haven't yet turned up any evidence of wrongdoing on her part," Armsmaster said. "Trying to intimidate and order around non-Protectorate heroes during an Endbringer attack, while a stupid idea that has revoked her ability to press charges against Glory Girl, is a momentary mistake compared to literally everything about Assault, or Doctor Corcoran's childhood. She will continue leading the San Francisco Protectorate, provisional on our investigation failing to turn up evidence of egregious wrongdoing."

"Egregious?" Vicky asked.

"She didn't live anywhere near Eidolon and Legend," Armsmaster said. "While it isn't a superpower, I  _ do _ have a lie detector, and questioning all three of them led me to believe that they really  _ didn't _ know each other very well. Certainly not well enough for her to be guilty by association. So, no, we're going to evaluate her on her own merits, and we aren't going to drop the hammer on her over anything short of a fuckup of the magnitude of Assault."

"What about setting a precedent?" Vicky asked. "Proving to everyone that Internal Affairs isn't just another half-measure damage-control stunt that powerful institutions pull when they get caught doing something awful and don't intend to change very much?"

"It's been only one day, and we've been very busy demoting two thirds of the Triumvirate, and putting the remaining third under intense and public investigative scrutiny," Armsmaster said. "Give us a week, we're miracle workers but we're not  _ that _ miraculous. Anyhow, there's one last thing I have to discuss before you three go home. Doctor Corcoran, this is for you."

Teller took the offered envelope, and opened it up, unfolding the letter held within.

"Dear Teller Corcoran," Teller said, reading the letter aloud. "Your situation has only recently come to my attention, and it is with great shame that I must apologize for your treatment by the United States government. I would love to welcome you back into service with open arms, and a hefty pay raise, but in the event that you reasonably decide you want nothing to do with us for the rest of your life, I understand that as well. Whichever path you choose, I, the- holy shit this letter's from the fucking president, what the fuck- the President of the United States, using the powers invested in me by the constitution, offer you a full, unconditional pardon of any and all illegal activity you may or may not have committed before this day, May 4th, 2011. Your name is cleared, and you may live openly and without fear once more. PS, tell Eidolon he's a bitch and I'm going to kick his ass. Sincerely, President James Glover."

"Did the  _ fucking  _ president  _ seriously _ write 'PS tell Eidolon he's a bitch?'" Vicky asked, leaning over Teller's shoulder. "Oh holy shit he did. What the fuck."

"I'm going to fucking frame this," Teller muttered, carefully folding the letter back up and tucking it back into the envelope. "One last question I have- who made these prosthetics? I presume they're going to want them back when Panacea finally gets around to replacing my arms."

"Ah, a Follower of the Apocalypse, by the name of Bonesaw," Armsmaster said. "A twelve year old girl with blonde hair. She's Ouroboros' adopted daughter. A bit of light scrutiny tells us that Bonesaw does, in fact, like being a Follower, and has no complaints about Ouroboros. Which is good, because after you, I'm absolutely not going to let any more horseshit like that continue unchallenged."

"Hey, actually, I have some questions about the Followers of the Apocalypse," Vicky said. "Like why the hell I've never heard of them before."

"The government thinks they're an embarrassment, and suppresses information on them," Armsmaster said. "Fortunately, our current President thinks this is a stupid policy, and while getting the whole of the government to stop that charade is going to take a long, long while, the Protectorate as a whole has been given clearance to inform its members about the Followers, and disseminate that information to other capes."

"Are the Followers responsible for that fucking gorilla I saw walking around here?" Lisa asked.

"That depends," Armsmaster began, before Lisa cut in.

"That's the worst thing you could've said," Lisa said.

"Was the gorilla fully clothed?" Armsmaster asked.

"It was barefoot, but otherwise it was wearing surgical scrubs and a labcoat," Lisa said.

"Then that would be Doctor Jonathan The Ape," Armsmaster said, pronouncing 'the' as though it were a middle name. "More commonly known as Johnny the Ape, or Doctor Ape."

"So is he, like, a Case 53 or something, or..." Vicky trailed off, letting the question hang in the air.

"No, he's just a gorilla with a medical license for trauma surgery," Armsmaster said.

"Can he talk?" Lisa asked.

"Don't be ridiculous, Skiptracer, he's a fucking gorilla," Armsmaster said with a wide grin. "I can't help but notice you're not asking questions, Doctor Corcoran."

"Eh, I've met him before, back when he was just Johnny The Ape, and didn't yet have his license," Teller said with a shrug. "Nice guy, once you can understand British Sign Language. He apologized for Ouroboros' behavior when I asked to join the Followers and she called me a shitty little bitch."

"...I would like to apologize for my hostility yesterday," Armsmaster said. "I would  _ love _ to be your friend and hear the rest of these stories of yours."

"Eh, I'll probably write a book soon," Teller said. "Probably a graphic novel, actually. That should inject some new life into the superhero comics business."

"So I take it you're not rejoining the Protectorate?" Armsmaster asked.

"Suck the farts out of my ass with a straw," Teller said flatly.

"I suppose that's a no."

"It most definitely is," Teller said. "And with all that out of the way, I'm going to go home, and get acquainted with my new arms."

"Be careful with those," Armsmaster said. "From what I hear, they lack any tactile feedback, so you might want to just avoid masturbating altogether until you get your real arms back."

Vicky rolled her eyes, and slung an arm around Teller's shoulders. "Does this man look like he needs to masturbate?"

\---

"So, why weren't Dennis and Dean invited?" Amy asked.

"They don't live here, and they also did not lose an eye defending me from an Endbringer," Teller said. The four of them were sitting in the living room, eating stew that Teller had canned back in January as part of a paranoid fit sparked by the fear of, appropriately enough, losing his hands. "Also... Buttsex notwithstanding, I have never been particularly close to either of them."

"I'm sorry what," Vicky said.

"Oh, yeah, I banged your ex-boyfriend in the ass," Teller said. "This was before we were dating, I assure you."

"I just... Why? Why would you do that?"

"Because I was horny and also craving intimacy in a way I thought could be fulfilled by sex but which I didn't actually find until we started dating. Also he has a nice ass."

"I mean- okay, yes, he does in fact have a nice ass, but-" Vicky stopped, before sighing. "Okay, okay, focus on the positives... Wait, hang on, since you're apparently bi, does that mean-"

"It does not mean threesomes," Teller said. "It absolutely does not, under any circumstances, mean threesomes."

"Oh come on!"

"The last time I slept with someone else while I was in a relationship, Leviathan crawled out of the ocean with the specific intention of killing me," Teller said. "Also, ask yourself who, precisely, we know that we'd both be willing to have any sexual contact with. How many guys do we know, outside of Dean and Dennis, who are gay?"

"...Uh... Hrm... Okay,  _ fair _ , but..." Vicky glanced over at Lisa. "...She could-"

"Golly gee willikers, Teller, this stew is fucking delicious," Amy said very loudly. "Please describe to us in great detail how exactly you made this wonderful stew!"

"Well you see, it all started with that day trip down to a nearby cattle ranch!" Teller said, grateful for the distraction. "I prefer to be involved with as many steps in the process of food making as is practical, and when you have a lot of money and a flexible work schedule, buying the cow directly from the farmer and killing and butchering it yourself is, technically, practical!"

"I have needs, damnit!" Vicky protested. "This is discrimination!"

"Against who?" Lisa asked.

"Horny people!"

"See, this is why I didn't invite the boys," Teller said. "I mean, who here is close enough to either of them to casually and comfortably joke around like this?"

"That's a problem we can solve by spending more time with them," Vicky said. "Y'know, like friends do."

"Well, the problem with that is I don't particularly like either of them," Teller said. "For all Dean apparently thought you were using him, I was  _ actually _ using him, and in a fairly transparent way, at that."

"Mm..." Vicky yawned, sticking her arms out in front of her and using them as leverage to flex her shoulders and her back. "So... what's next, huh?"

"Iunno," Teller said. "Guess I just keep living my life, huh? I've, uh... I think I've run out of problems from my past, so... I think, so long as I'm not a fucking idiot and I don't make any  _ more _ problems... I should be golden."

"What about Krieg's hypothetical idiot teenage son who doesn't know fear?" Lisa asked.

"Or Oni Lee," Vicky pointed out.

"Or some new villains who know you're in town and think they're hot enough shit to take you on," Amy said.

"What about that Coil asshole who you scared off to who knows where, deciding that an Endbringer would've softened Brockton Bay up for him to more easily take it, and also you?" Lisa asked.

"I hate all of you and I'm going to bed now. Goodnight."

**THE END**

**SEQUEL COMING EVENTUALLY; WATCH THIS SPACE**


End file.
